By Tosin Adesile
No doubt, technology has really changed the face of
media reportage and access. The proliferation of online publishers and bloggers
and the development of social media networks have brought both challenges and
opportunities to the profession. This can be noticed in the dwindling rate of
Newspaper sales.
According to the 2010 study carried out by the
Advertisers Association of Nigeria (ADVAN) across the country, the daily sales
figure of all the newspapers was less than 300,000, meaning that only one in
every 470 Nigerians buy newspapers daily (Ekeng, 2010).
The study by
Ekeng (2010) further disclosed that The Punch as the number one selling
national daily only circulates 34, 264 copies, The Sun was ranked third with
25, 632 unit sales. Vanguard got 25, 241, while Guardian and Thisday came 5th
and 6th respectively, with 25, 222 and 21, 703 daily sales. Daily Trust, the
most popular newspaper up North has 11, 672 daily unit sales. Tribune, the
oldest surviving newspaper in Nigeria, was another surprise, managing only 8,
314 daily sales. The above mentioned dailies constitute what is known as the
top 8 in the standing. The others combined, including Compass, Daily Independent,
Leadership, National Life , New Nigeria, Mirror and Westerner, could barely
rake up 1,600 daily sales.
Popoola, (2010) said that all the newspapers in Nigeria today have combined
circulation figure that is far less than 500,000 copies per day of Daily Times
of Nigeria in 1980 when the Population of Nigeria was about half of what it is
today.
The
reason for this decline could not be far- fetched as people now have access to
information as their breaking due to new media. People no longer wait till the
next day to get a copy of the newspaper before they can have access to
information or breaking news. The population of people who buy newspaper are
business men and people who want to have further background of existing
information.
Buying books, newspapers and magazine for learning
are no longer fashionable as people are now in control of learning through
access to technological tools. This possibly is one of the major challenges
facing the media.
Quoting Akinfeleye(2014) lecture notes on media and
national security, he noted that from the 500 copies sales of newspaper by
Daily Times per day in 1980,editors and
reporters were kings and well paid due to income generated from sales and
advert.
The explosion of online information sources and
social media platforms has caused consumers to segment themselves into groups
based on interests or opinions. Most people now by-pass the general news media
and devote the vast majority of their information-gathering time and attention
to media sources that concentrate on their niche interests.
The wind of change
today has blown into the media to strengthen it for better repositioning, the
earlier the print media key into the challenge by producing knowledge based
financial 
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