My thought
Dying print media and the Strait of Hormuz
Sankha Kar: For those who know me, my thoughts on the decline of print media are nothing new. After three decades working as a photojournalist, and now explaining this evolving landscape to my mass communication students, I have spent years analysing this shift.
The recent developments around the Strait of Hormuz simply brought it back to my mind. It gave me a simple way to explain what really happened to newspapers.To understand what happened to newspapers, just replace "crude oil" with "news" and "the strait" with "the newspaper."
The pre-digital era: The information chokepoint
In the pre-digital era, newspapers were exactly like the Strait of Hormuz.
The "oil" was information: news, sports, government updates and advertisements.
The "strait" was the newspaper: the only route through which this information could reach the masses.
If a business wanted customers or a politician wanted voters, their message had to pass through the printing press. Because there was no alternative route, newspapers could charge a high "toll" for advertising. They were the undisputed gatekeepers.
The digital era: The chokepoint disappears
Then came the internet. It didn’t just widen the strait; it made the chokepoint irrelevant. Information no longer needed the newsroom to travel.
An eyewitness with a smartphone can publish instantly.
A public figure can speak directly to millions on X, formerly Twitter.
Millions of new pipelines were built overnight. Advertisers realised they didn't need to pay the toll anymore. They bypassed the strait entirely, reaching audiences directly through platforms like Google and Meta — faster, cheaper and more targeted.
The new reality
Newspapers aren't struggling because people stopped needing news. They are struggling because the world no longer needs a gatekeeper.
Information flows everywhere now. The Strait of Hormuz still matters in geography, but for print media, the strait is gone. The power has permanently shifted from gatekeeping to credibility and from control to trust. Those who realise this will survive, while those who do not will simply fade away.
*infographic created with Nano Banana AI.
#Journalism #PrintMedia #MediaTransformation #DigitalDisruption #FutureOfMedia #MediaStrategy #Disintermediation #TrustInMedia #Storytelling #Photojournalism #VisualCommunication
