Are the newspaper and magazine industries reaching their final hour? This question has been raised more and more frequently during recent weeks.

We all know that the trend of a lot more young people using the internet to communicate, meet friends and find jobs is already highly evident and on the rise. Accompanying this is the consequential rise of young people discarding magazines and newspapers as sources for information or jobseeking solutions.

As the revolution that is the internet continues to attract an ever-increasing number of ‘converts’ (who are overcoming their fears of technology, venturing into social-networking sites and using the web for research) there has been a marked decline in the use of the more traditional news articles and print - when searching for recruitment solutions.

The latter two statements mentioned are a real cause for concern for the newspaper and magazine sector. You may ask why this is bad news for the industry. It’s simple really, the function of a newspaper is to report current news, advertise jobs, advertise classifieds and sometimes include TV schedules – Whilst reading that you were probably saying to yourself – “…but I can do all of that online…” – That’s my point.

And the same approach applies to the purpose of a magazine – Any subject covered in a magazine is more than likely to appear on the web. With the younger generation having already taken to this ideology, and more people of the mid & senior generations in tow.

One could consider the factors mentioned thus far to be the jabs and body shots being steadily thrown at the newspaper and magazine industry, but the knockout blow will come from the withdrawal of a lot of advertisement in the industry. As a continuing amount of employers start switching to online-advertising – through social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, through HR-SEO and online recruitment sites - they are realising the ease and cost effectiveness of advertising to the younger generation online.

Without finance from advertising – which is the very backbone of their respective industries - the newspaper and magazine will be becoming less prominent in the lives of people across the globe. And essentially - in terms of marketing an employer brand to younger audiences of graduates - print just cannot compete with the effectiveness of online reach and costs.