THE ROLE OF THE NEWSPAPER VERSUS TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT

Since the 19^th Century, the Newspaper has been one of the most reliable sources of information. The newspaper industry has therefore been one of the most important players in human development. The papers have provided crucial information that has aided decision making even from very dangerous situations like battle fronts and famine plagued zones. It is therefore not surprising that the newspaper has managed to establish itself as one of the most important tools for human existence.

However, while the industry continues to play this role and make significant progress, the newspaper faces a very challenging future unless they change the way they operate. While in the past, threats for newspaper survival would come from failing to compete with a rival newspaper or from cases of litigation for sedition, defamation and slander, the new threat and perhaps the biggest has emerged from the technological advancement.

As the world advances technologically, more and more people are gaining access to the internet. This has worked to the advantage of the electronic newsletters while placing the newspaper in a tight corner. Thus as more people gain access to the internet, the electronic newsletters are becoming their first source of information. This is not only because of the ease of use and their ability to report in real time, but also because most electronic Newsletters offer an interactive service.

The flourishing of these newsletters therefore call for a redefinition of the role which newspapers must play in the modern world. Newspaper editors and their teams need to realize that while other businesses rely heavily on their marketing teams to create an appealing brand, the appeal in a newspaper largely depends on the creativity of the editors and their journalists. News editors should not only be preoccupied with editing for style or just ensuring that a writer has a balanced story. Editors must realize that increasing the shelf life of the paper as well as ensuring that their readers are not being given stale news is equally as important. Unfortunately, with the coming of the electronic media, newspapers have failed to adjust and take their proper role. The result thus has been that readers have been forced to feast on stale news.

It is my opinion therefore that the newspaper industry has to redefine its role from that of reporting to that of focusing on effort and resources on investigating, analyzing and reporting. The modern day journalist needs to go further than just presenting an account of what has happened. He/she has to place more emphasis on the why and not necessarily what or the how if the print press is to remain relevant as a source of information. It is a known fact that the curiosity to know what has happened is what drives the media industry. The readers therefore do not find any value to read stories in the newspaper which they have already read online. What would be valuable to the modern readers then, is continuity of the stories they have read on the internet or seen on the television in form of analysis and not necessarily the story itself.

In an effort to meet date-lines, possibly with the view of presenting a story that is timely, journalists have ended up regurgitating what has already been written or presented by the electronic/online media. For instance one may need to look at how the Malawian media handled the KIPs tragedy. While the TV, the radio and all social networks were awash with the tragic news, one would have expected the newspaper to take a different angle-one that would expose what really happened and why it happened. However, all the morning papers just wrote what almost every Malawian already knew-that there has been a tragedy at KIPs in Blantyre. Usually, such stories have only managed to sell because of either brand loyalty on part of the customer or because of the curiosity that the situation had created otherwise without any new information, the papers failed to provide value for money to their readers. This has been a consistent failure by the newspaper industry and the one that needs to be seriously looked into if the industry is to survive the online boom.

The Malawian newspaper journalist therefore must adjust to start writing their stories beyond the usual inverted pyramid style and be able to report based on what the readers might want to know.

Examples are there of companies that have ended up struggling due to their failure to adapt to technological advancement - Malawi Posts Corporation might be a good example. It would be sad if the Malawian newspaper failed to adjust and ended up in a similar situation.