1 . “It’s like tasering an elderly person who’s already on a pacemaker,” says a British newspaper boss of the newsprint market, where prices have risen by over 50% in a matter of months.
When times were good, before ads went online, newspapers had a supportive partnership with paper mills. As ads went away and circulations fell, “paper mills had the worst of it for years as newspapers reduced pages, went wholly digital or shut forever.”
The papers were able to cut down the cost of newsprint from firms fighting for business as demand decreased. Price-taking paper mills suffered in silence, taking out newsprint capacity and adjusting machines to make packaging for e-commerce. The pandemic, with people working from home, meant even fewer newspaper sales, which depressed demand for newsprint again and increased the pain for paper suppliers. In the past 24 months European mills have responded by shutting almost a fifth of their newsprint capacity, says a buyer for a large British newspaper group.
Then reopening of economies and growing demand for newsprint, combined with much reduced capacity and coupled with up-going energy prices, has resulted in a price shock. Particularly controversial are additional energy charges that some paper suppliers are seeking to pass on.
Newspaper firms consider this amounts as breaking agreements. European newspapers will have to pay newsprint prices that are 50—70% higher in the first quarter of 2022 compared with the year before. As for their counterparts in Asia and Oceania, they are facing prices around 25% to 45% above their usual level. North American prices went up earlier, and more gradually; agreements are fixed monthly rather than half-yearly. But there, too, newsprint prices are 20—30% higher in 2021 than in 2020.
Germany’s print and media industry association has warned that mills are going to force newspapers to quit paper editions, hurting each other in the process. But more digital adrenaline is one possible response of newspapers to the paper mills’ tasers.
1. What can be learned from the first three paragraph?| A．Newspapers have raised their prices by over 50% . |
| B．Newspapers and paper mills were good friends all the time. |
| C．Newspapers and paper mills affect each other. |
| D．Newspapers increased their sales and the pain of paper mills. |
| A．Reopening of economies. | B．Growing demand for newsprint. |
| C．Much reduced capacity. | D．Additional energy consumption. |
| A．Europe. | B．Asia. | C．Oceania. | D．North American. |
| A．Health. | B．Science. | C．Business. | D．Environment. |
2 . Are newspapers dying? Many say the disappearance of the daily paper is just a matter of time. Now newspaper circulation is dropping, ad income is drying up, and the industry has experienced a great wave of layoffs (裁员) in recent years. A third of the large newsrooms across the United States had layoffs between 2017 and April 2018 alone. So these people say the Internet is just a better place to get news. “On the web, newspapers are live, and they can enrich their coverage with audio, video, and the invaluable resources of their vast archives (档案),” said Jeffrey I. Cole, director of USC’s Digital Future Center. “For the first time in 60 years, newspapers are back in the breaking news business, except now their delivery method is electronic and not paper.”
Yes, newspapers are facing tough times, and the Internet can offer many things papers can’t. However, newspapers are still here, and many of them remain profitable. Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst for the Poynter Institute, says the widespread newspaper industry layoffs of the last decade should make papers more survivable. “Many newspapers are operating more leanly (精简地) now,” Edmonds said. “The business will be smaller, but there should be enough profit there to make a sustainable business for years to come.”
Those who claim the future of news is online ignore one important point: Online ad income alone just isn’t enough to support most news companies. Thus, online news sites will need a new business model to survive. One possibility may be paywalls, meaning people have to pay for content. The 2013 Pew Research Center media report found that paywalls had been adopted at 450 of the country’s 1,380 dailies.
Until someone figures out how to make online-only news sites profitable, newspapers aren’t going anywhere. Despite the occasional scandal (丑闻) at print institutions, they remain trusted sources of information people turn to.
1. Why are newspapers still there?| A．Many newspapers report more scandals. |
| B．Newspapers have applied new marketing methods. |
| C．Many newspaper companies simplified their operation. |
| D．Newspapers enrich their coverage with audio and video. |
| A．By charging their readers. | B．By featuring the online advertisements. |
| C．By releasing more shocking news. | D．By cooperating with local printed newspapers. |
| A．Newspapers won’t exist. | B．Newspapers won’t be dead. |
| C．Newspapers won’t be trusted. | D．Newspapers won’t be reduced. |
| A．The future of newspapers. |
| B．Advantages and disadvantages of newspapers. |
| C．The meaning of the existence of printed newspapers. |
| D．The comparisons between newspapers and online news. |
