Skip to main content

BTN: Paying for the news, or not

Posted 
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.
A baby crawls across an expanse of TV screens
BTN: Paying for the news, or not

SUBJECTS:  English, Media Literacy, Technologies

YEARS:  5–6, 7–8


Imagine a time before modern technology: no television, radio or computers.

How did people find out about what was happening in the world? Through newspapers! Times are changing, however. With the internet at our fingertips, do we even need newspapers anymore?

Watch this clip to find out how the internet is creating issues for newspaper companies today.


Things to think about

  1. 1.When was the last time you read a newspaper? You pay for a print newspaper but can get online news for free. Should reading the news online be any different to purchasing a print newspaper?
  2. 2.Some people say that newspapers 'are going the way of the dinosaurs'. What makes newspapers expensive to produce? What impact is the internet having on the profitability of newspapers? List the reasons identified in the clip from August 2009.
  3. 3.One of the issues here is that many people are not prepared to pay for newspapers anymore, but they don't want to pay for online news either. What might happen to the news if no-one paid for it anymore? Explain why you think people should have to pay for online news or not.
  4. 4.Find a print newspaper with an online version that you have free access to at home or at school. Choose an article that interests you. How is your experience of the two versions of the article different? Use a table to compare the features of each type of text. What advantages or disadvantages do you see with the digital and print versions of news?



Date of broadcast: 18 Aug 2009


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Posted