In the past few months we have seen a number of Newspapers go the way of the recycling bin and a new group of paper based publications is expected to file for bankruptcy in 2009 but what is the cause and will electronic news sources replace conventional daily publications…?

The fact is that once a story is reported and placed on the net there is little reason to print it on paper and distribute it by the masses of child labor or on news stands. How many times have you read something online that you thought was fresh only to tell your friends and they say they already knew about it.

In paper based news the reporting of information has become guarded. They hold back information or details of stories just so they can justify printing it. But it is not the articles or the face price that makes newspapers money it is advertising.

Ads are the primary reason that Newspapers exist today. Circulations on weekends that contain just as many coupons and sales circulars as content is always higher then daily distribution. Some newspapers have even decided to do away with publishing a few week day distributions because they can not find enough advertisers to fill their quotas.

So is online news killing the Newspaper industry?

Probably not, the more likely cause is the changes in the way companies advertise their products and lower revenues at all businesses resulting in fewer advertising dollars being spent.

Who is likely to benefit from fewer newspapers?

Local and regional websites that can produce news information might see some benefit if they can also distribute their content to large portal sites.

Google News is one such site that has started to include more unconventional news resources in their news alerts section. Although you will see AP and Reuters filling in large areas of their content smaller regional sources have and will play a big part in their news gathering technique.

So although you may never see Tony’s Pizza Blog used as a reference in online news you may see a new group of sites that can address local and regional news  while industry standards still address national and international news.

This is definately a Niche Market worth looking into.