Robin Bromby

Newspapers Robin Bromby

From the broadcast of the first news bulletin on radio in 1920, daily newspapers have been under pressure from a succession of challenges, ranging from television to suburban weeklies until - finally - the internet. Along the way the industry was beset by industrial disputes, reluctance to embrace the latest technologies, crippling rises in costs of newsprint and labour, traffic gridlock that hampered city newspaper deliveries. By the time it became possible to get your news on a computer, and then on other mobile devices, the newspaper industry was passed its best. Then many papers made the near fatal decision to give away their news for free online, a strategy that was realised too late to be a dreadful mistake. Newspapers: A Century of Decline charts this century-long saga.