Printed media: Going online or shut down forever

Many newspaper organisations are closing down or downsizing its offices to save cost due to the public reading newspaper on the web instead of buying newspaper. Unfortunately, The Sun Daily is one of the victims of this scenario as it has closed down its Penang office on December 31, 2018.

Have you notice the trend of going digitalized in the past recent years? People are doing their task online like calling for McDonald delivery on their smartphone or paying bills using online banking.

The advanced technology makes our lives convenient however that is not the case for the newspaper industry with many newspaper organisations restructuring their company to save cost while able keeping up with the digital world.

The Star Intern James Goh said the editor would teach him about the social media to attract people online to read news from The Star.

“Although I am an intern, it is a good thing for me to learn to prepare myself as a journalist heading towards the digital world,” said Goh

Goh (Right) said it is a good lesson to learn on how to publish news stories on social media to attract people online

He said the organisation would look at other news organisation from overseas as a reference to learn how do people use the Internet to read news.

"News organisation from overseas are more different because the people living there read news online whereas Malaysians are just beginning to read news online," said Goh

He said the newspaper organisation in Malaysia cannot be as advanced as the newspaper organisation from overseas due to the limited resources in Malaysia.

"The limited resource like money and manpower is an obstacle need to be overcome by every newspaper organisation in Malaysia as the country is still advancing itself to compete with other countries in one way or another," said Goh

Meanwhile, popular Chinese newspaper Oriental Daily News have vacancy for online reporter for publishing news on their social media to gain readers online with everyone is reading news on social media.

Oriental Daily News is recruiting new online reporter for publishing news online or social media

The Sun Daily: A price need to be paid

The Sun Daily Deputy News Editor Ian McIntyre, whom is the former Northern Region Editor said the closure of The Sun Daily office in Penang is a price need to be paid for the digital age nowadays.

“The reduction of job quality is the price need to be paid due to technology advancement and it is called destructive effect which is noticeable in the print media,” said McIntyre

The Sun Daily are not the only printed media are making changes in the organisation as The Star is also moving to a smaller office in Pitt Street to save cost.

“The Star is also making some changes towards their Penang office by moving to Pitt Street to

save cost due to the bad economy in Malaysia,” said McIntyre

He hopes the news organisation would head towards the digital age by having a new vacancy involving social media and the Internet to prepare the journalist on making news stories in an interesting way.

“I hope The Sun Daily have a vacancy on the social media and Internet to attract younger generations and make interesting news stories online like The Star would do to their investigative stories on R.AGE,” he said

McIntyre (Left) hope The Sun Daily will soon head towards the digital age