By Jay Carroll
Staff Writer

Times have changed; the world we live in today is dominated by cell phones, laptops, tablets and many more forms of communication technology, but it has gotten to the point to where people are starting to lose their jobs because technology is simply taking over.

Print media has been hit especially hard. Many newspapers and media companies around the country have had to cut the number of newspapers that they will print to only three newspapers a week. In Alabama, the three largest newspapers, The Birmingham News, Mobile Press-Register and Huntsville Times have recently announced that they are cutting 400 jobs.

It is a similar story in New Orleans where The Times-Picayune also recently announced 200 job cuts to members of the newspaper staff. This seems to be the trend that this country is following; with more and more people reading the news on their mobile devises, newspaper companies are having a decline in readership.

I appreciate reading the news on my phone – it is really convenient to have the news available to me anywhere so I can read breaking news instantly and I do not have to wait for the newspaper to arrive in the morning.

While it may be more convenient to read the news on the Internet, it is also usually plagued with false information, while newspapers usually provide readers with more accurate information.

I cannot imagine The Dallas Morning News not sitting on the counter in the kitchen in my house as I walk downstairs every morning. I cannot imagine my dad and sister not bickering over who gets to read the SportsDay first.

I am well aware that more and more people are starting to rely on forms of technology for news, but there are also those people who still love picking up the newspaper from their front lawn when they wake up in the morning.

There have been many newspaper and publishing companies that have shut down, resulting in a many job layoffs.

The newspapers do not deserve to be shut down. I realize profitability of newspapers has decreased, but the government has bailed out many companies in the past. Where is the bailout to prevent hundreds, maybe even thousands of people from losing their jobs nation wide?

While websites may be convenient for the common person, there is often the common error of people reading websites that are not true news websites, but the biased and sometimes parody websites that make fun of recent news or websites that do not truly provide the truth.

While newspapers are held to a higher standard, where the writers and editors make sure the articles tell the truth before sending the story to print.

Just a few weeks ago during Superstorm Sandy, there was a reporter who said that the New York Stock Exchange had three feet of water inside of it, when really that was false. This happens a good amount through Twitter and other social media sites. However, the newspapers provide their morning readers with the accurate information that some sites and sources could not provide the night before.

Online it can be really easy for websites to disguise the news as fact or fiction, while newspapers do not have that grey area and there is never a question on whether the information is real or fake.

Newspapers provide accurate information to their readers, and without them the real stories and information may get lost within all of the lies that surround the internet and social media.