The paper is dying

Norwegian news corporation Orkla Media has announced its decision to move resources away from the traditional newspaper in favour of online news and web-TV. Analysts have talked about "the end of paper" for decades. Is this finally it?

While readership have declined somewhat since the Internet became popular, there is no immediate threat to the strong position of local newspapers in Norway, but that might change if Orkla Media and other news corporations move resources away from paper. Who will bother to read a template-guided local paper where most of the articles are produced in some center far away? Where's the local identity in that?

And what happens to a democracy when most people only get snippets of information from the Net? No one bothers to read long, critical articles online. Web site statistics show that online readers are interested in gossip, sex and celebrities. Will we end up with a small political elite? The few people who actually bother to pay attention to what is happening? And if so, how will that affect democracy? Probably not in a positive way...

And even if you manage to get most readers online, there simply isn't enough room for ads to increase revenues, which means paying for access, which again means fewer readers.