By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on December 18, 2024
Beginning in January 2025, our menu of news offerings and digital footprint will expand to include current events in one-minute TikTok-style videos which we will populate across all digital platforms within our network. The pilot testing for this expansion occurred in November and December and was very successful.
Of course, we will continue to offer the extended versions of our original news articles on our established digital media platforms. On average, about 160,000 guests regularly visit our free, open, interactive, and public media platforms each month.
Changing News Consumption Habits
During the past 15 years, Americans have drastically changed their news consumption habits. Today, they mostly watch the news on cellphones in 30-second snippets. Even when they read news, it’s mostly headlines and social media posts on X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit, Truth Social, and other popular digital platforms.
Americans are busy with their personal lives, kids, personal bills, passions, and hobbies. Many of them are working two jobs to make ends meet. They do not have a lot of time for studying history, politics, or current events.
We have discovered that only about 10 percent of Americans read newspapers, and their online engagement with newspaper websites averages less than two minutes.
As such, legacy newspaper platforms across America are dying, and hard news reporting is becoming a lost art.
What is worse, the podcast cottage industry that sprang up in recent years to fill this void has morphed into a cesspool of uninformed hustlers who peddle shallow gossip as a substitute for hardcore “news."
All this is occurring at a time of when the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots" is widening. When Americans are working longer hours just to make ends meet, they have much less time to read or view serious news and reflect upon it.
The Changing News Consumption Habits are Driving our Growth
The rapidly changing trends in the news media business have greatly benefitted our digital media platforms. There are no ads or sponsored content on our news platforms. There are no paywalls blocking access to our news content.
Instead, we offer free and open access to a media library of over 1,100 original articles on a wide range of fascinating and newsworthy topics. Many of these articles are investigative reports. Furthermore, our library of articles grows exponentially every day.
These consumer-friendly factors are driving our growth. We believe that no one should have to pay for hard news on current events in this day and age.
Despite concerted efforts by dying legacy newspapers and nefarious political operatives in Alabama to discredit our investigative reporting and slow our growth, we have succeeded in the digital print media industry beyond our wildest expectations. In 2025, we will be expanding our media brand to include an abbreviated form of TikTok-style videos on the topics that make our viewers smarter.
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