Writer Likens Google News to Parasite; Google, Print News Trade Blows

From DailyTech: These days, many of the largest print news publications are either moving entirely online or dying altogether. This bleak outlook really comes into focus as advertisers increasingly funnel their ad revenue online. This trend has forced the publishers of several large city newspaper chains to close their doors. Among the losses have been the Tribune Co., Philadelphia Newspapers, Vancouver, Washington's The Columbian, and Denver's Rocky Mountain News. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, meanwhile, has moved entirely online, while The Boston Globe only narrowly escaped bankruptcy in past months.

However, while the print news business may appear a dying breed, the online news business is flourishing. And when it comes to online news, perhaps the biggest player is not a news site itself, but rather Google News, a news aggregator site from Google. Many major news providers including The New York Times, The Associated Press, CNET, and more are published on Google News.

In a special meeting of the Senate Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet this Wednesday, newspaper representatives met with Congress about the ailing state of the print business according to Information Week. Some like David Simon, noted author and the creator of HBO's The Wire, complained that online news and news aggregators are killing the business.

He states, "High-end journalism is dying and it won't be reborn anywhere else without a new model. The parasite is slowly killing the host. High-end journalism is a profession."

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