An Art of Journalism in Modern Digital World

Reading newspapers has long been a part of people’s morning routines. Many used to have their paper physically delivered to their house. In today’s digital age however, many are opting to forego that and get the majority of their news stories online.

Companies like The Huffington Post and Buzzfeed have already made a note of their customers’ changing attitudes and began to cover more serious news stories on their websites to attract a broader customer base. Now, companies like Business Insider are trying to accomplish the same feat by expanding their own website to include more serious journalism.

Business Insider is able to economize by expanding their website. They know how invested their customers are in technology, and by adding more stories to their website that are considered to be serious journalism, they can expand their current customer base. This choice offers a greater guarantee of success than would completely overhauling their website or switching to a physical copy of their news stories as it would alienate their current customers, leading to a possible loss of profit.

Business Insider’s decision to do this involves a cost. By focusing most of their attention on adding more serious news stories, they will most likely have a decrease in their light-hearted stories such as “25 Secrets That Show That Duck Dynasty Could Be Totally Fake”. This may lead to a rise in complaints from their customers who they have had for a long time, because that is what the customers originally came to the website for.

The incentive for their customers to read these longer and more serious new stories can be seen in the increase in technology. With the introduction of Business Insider being available on tablets and mobile applications, more people are able to easily access these articles on the go, and feel more comfortable reading them than they would on a traditional desktop computer.

Today’s large dependency on technology has led to many things that have once been available physically to be moved online. As more and more websites add serious journalism to their websites, people’s options of physical newspapers will decrease because of the large demand for news to be online that the physical newspapers will not be able to compete with.

Voluntary trade creates wealth for Business Insider. By voluntarily shifting attention away from working on their normal topic of articles, they are able to focus on a new genre o articles that will most likely lead to an increase of their already 24 million unique visitors each month, as it will add more variety to their website, appealing to more people.

The consequences of choices lie in the future because of this decision. Many physical newspapers will most likely become obsolete eventually because of the large amount of competition they face from companies like Business Insider and The Huffington Post, whose customers flock to their websites because of the ease of access and free price.

The author’s view that digital readers are increasingly looking for longer and more serious news articles is correct. People view these news websites as more convenient than the traditional newspaper but still would like the in-depth nature of a newspaper, which would be provided by the more journalistic articles. This article relates to class because we have discussed the things that would shift the demand curve such as tastes and preferences. In this case, the demand for physical newspapers had decreased because of people’s preference for things to be online. In the future, more companies will most likely add more serious journalism to their websites in order to continuously attract new customers.