Consider the extent to which, across different markets, newspapers are experiencing ‘crisis’, and the nature of that crisis. Should this also be seen as a crisis for journalism and democracy more broadly?

Evolving from announcement bulletins in ancient Rome to partisan papers in early nineteenth century and to the neutral papers in mid 1980s with a circulation of 62.5 million (NAA, 2009), newspaper bred journalism and upheld public sphere. However, recent decades witnessed large job cutting and numerous shutting down in newspaper industry. It remains debatable that whether the shockwave would spread to the entire journalism as a profession and to democracy which newspapers have always claimed to serve. This essay is going argue that the crisis confronted by newspapers does not necessarily entail a declining of journalism since democracy is carried out in a multidimensional way in new media environment. This essay will firstly look at the manifestation of the crisis confronted by newspaper industry in recent decades, the structural change it brought, and the nature of the crisis. After that, this essay would look at how the crisis encountered by the industry transformed journalistic practices and argues that journalism still has the capacity to carry out its civil function.
Newspapers industry have been experiencing the decline of market share and revenue margin since the late twentieth century across markets such as U.S., UK, European, and Australia. (Beecher, 2005; Carson, 2013; Franklin, 2008; O’Donnell, 2012). The drop of circulation and the accelerated disappearing of afternoon newspapers in countries like UK and Australia (Carson, 2012) are the manifestation of the current news consumption environment. Facing the shrinking market and profit margin, an increasing number of newspapers developed news sites and digital versions.
Moving online is not an easy