Google is ‘hugely dangerous’ to newspaper industry

In 2007, US newspapers have seen an overall circulation decline of roughly 2.4 percent, but an increase of approximately 3.7 percent in their total Internet audience. Also, in the first half, US newspapers saw double-digit revenue declines in classifieds categories across the board (14.8 percent overall). It's clearly a time of crisis for print newspapers in the US and to a lesser degree abroad, as the Internet becomes a primary news medium. Online newspaper sites do offer some hope to the industry -- some hope.

Among the things conspiring against print newspapers is the culture at large. Things have sped up considerably and people often don't feel they have time to read the newspaper as they once did. A multi-national survey earlier this year, conducted by Harris Interactive for the World Association of Newspapers, asked: “What do you think causes some people not to want to read a newspaper on a regular basis?”

The following were the top answers in each country:

US: Lack of time to read the newspaper
Great Britain : Biased or too narrow of a viewpoint in its reporting
France: Lack of time to read the newspaper
Italy: Easier to go online for news and information
Spain: Biased or too narrow of a viewpoint in its reporting
Germany: Lack of time to read the newspaper
Australia: Lack of time to read the newspaper

Another threat that these newspapers are facing, is Google News. There are many people who feel that Google news will destroy the news industry. Well the reason for this they feel is that, in case of Google they  don't have any news agency of there own and the news which is there is uploaded by the people, so the authenticity of the news can't be judged.

Anne Spackman, editor of Timesonline, also says same here. According to her, Google is ‘hugely dangerous’ to newspaper industry.

Well what are your thoughts about this. Do share it with me.