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