Some people think that newspapers will die out under the impact of the internet and television. what do you think? Please explain your point of view.

The first question is about an incident that happened at the end of last year. At the end of last year, Time magazine published an article introducing that Philip Mayer, a professor at North Carolina State University in the United States, gave a timetable for the demise of newspapers in his book The Disappearing Newspaper: Saving Journalists in the Information Age: "By 2044, to be exact, the last daily newspaper reader will check out." This article is actually a very general prediction article, which has caused great repercussions in China. Many media have published articles on this issue. Just last year, Time magazine named you as the person of the year, which means that all of us who use the Internet are Time magazine's person of the year. This shows that the communication structure has changed greatly. The problem itself is sensational and hyped. Because we have entered the era of "media convergence" (the media convergence period is a research project of the 985 School of Journalism of Renmin University), from the overall perspective of media channels, all kinds of media are actually or have been integrated into digital media, but the external forms show differences to meet different acceptance needs. This difference is not essential, but formal. In the new media environment, simply saying that the information carrier of a certain media is going to die is a simplification of complex problems.

This cartoon was drawn by Mr. Dai, a Shanghai cartoonist. Now we have been around computers and screens since childhood, because we have entered such an era. The most typical example is the mobile phone. Last year 10, People's Posts and Telecommunications Publishing House published a book entitled "The Principle of the Fifth Media". Take the mobile phone as an example, its own media process is actually a process of media integration. Mobile phones constantly integrate voice, short messages, newspapers, television, internet, blogs, games, photography and other functions. Mobile newspaper, mobile TV and mobile blog have become popular words, which makes mobile media have new additional functions, thus truly forming a comprehensive and integrated personal information dissemination platform, and almost all the communication functions that can be put on the platform are put on it. Therefore, the biggest factor for mobile media to change the world information dissemination pattern is its own integration. Without this integration, the mobile phone is just a single voice communication tool and cannot become a significant media type. In this sense, integration produces competitiveness and vitality, and the vitality of mobile phones lies in its integration.

In the future world, the form of communication is digital communication. In this sense, magazines, newspapers, radio and television are all a kind of media, and they are all digital media. In this sense, talking about the disappearance of newspapers is a bit out of date. Now there's one more question. Mobile phones show the development and changes of future communication modes. But I guess we still have a long way to go.

Why is China so sensitive to the death of newspapers? The paper media in China has encountered a big problem. Before 2005, for more than ten years in a row, the annual increase of advertising volume was double digits, and in 2005 it fell to single digits, which was lower than the national output growth rate. This is a common problem in China newspaper industry. A foreigner said a word, how can it attract so much attention in China? Because now the newspaper industry in China is experiencing a decline in advertising volume. It is normal for the newspaper industry to have problems. In the past few years, the newspaper industry has developed so smoothly that it is foreseeable that one day it will stumble. The key is to treat it with a normal heart. At present, the difficulties encountered by the newspaper industry in China are largely caused by their own reasons. If the root of the difficulty is generally attributed to the competition with new media (with this factor), it can only be said that the newspaper industry is shirking its responsibility and making excuses for its bad competition.

In fact, the main problem lies in the newspaper industry itself, which has developed rapidly, but there are also many problems. I feel proud to develop myself compared with myself, but for example. The New York Times is a comprehensive media group with newspapers, radio and television publishing houses headed by The New York Times. Its annual profit is $2.9 billion, but the combined annual profit of all our newspaper groups is still less than a small part of The New York Times newspaper group. We can see the gap between the development of China newspaper industry and the more powerful newspaper groups in the world. Don't think how fast our newspaper industry is developing. In fact, our development in the world is very slow. Among so many newspaper groups, Shenzhen Southern Newspaper Group is the most profitable, with an annual profit of 1 billion and RMB 1 billion. How can I compare with others?

Therefore, the development of China newspaper industry is quite slow. There are several issues to discuss here. At present, the high-grade cultural entertainment, responsible social news, in-depth news comments and all-round information services of the newspaper industry are not enough, and they are quite poor. Culture and entertainment are low-level, social news is irresponsible, and in-depth news comments are limited to a few newspapers, let alone all-round information services. Another point is that the service consciousness and service level of China newspaper industry can't compare with that of developed countries. Sending newspapers home and delivering them in time is impossible for most newspapers now. There is still a big gap between the development level of our newspaper industry and the international newspaper industry, so I feel uneasy when others say that the newspaper industry is going to die.

There are also historical reasons, such as unequal use of news resources, imperfect market supervision system, unscientific verification of advertising and distribution data, and so on. In order to deceive readers, mislead customers, buy off survey companies and make irresponsible remarks; In order to gain market share, some newspapers provoked a "newspaper distribution war" and lowered newspaper prices again and again; In order to rob advertisers, they compete to bargain for advertising discounts. These are irregular operations, which are very common in China at present. Newspaper competition is in a state of disorderly melee, and some advertisers take advantage of it. This dilemma of the newspaper industry is not the result of competition with the Internet, nor with radio and television media, but the result of vicious competition within itself. There's another big problem. Advertising is the main factor supporting the economic growth of newspaper industry. Once there is something wrong with the advertisement, the newspaper will play it. The single income of newspaper industry is a common problem in China's paper media.

Therefore, after more than ten years of rapid development, it is normal for the newspaper industry to begin to decline now. Without thinking about it carefully, I really thought that newspapers would decline.