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Australian newspapers ‘will stop printing by 2022’

Newspapers have 12 years or less left to live in print, the Newspaper Publishers Association will be told later this week.  

Ahead of Thursday night’s Newspaper of the Year Awards, the NPA is holding a “Future Forum” during the day fronted with a keynote speech from digital consultant Ross Dawson.

In a release from the NPA, Dawson says: “By 2022 newspapers as we know them will be irrelevant in Australia. However the leading newspaper publishers of today may have transformed themselves to thrive in what will be a flourishing media industry.”

Dawson claims to have predicted tyhe rsie of social networking and microblogging in his book Living Networks which he wrote in 2002.

During the speech Dawson will claim that devices such as the iPad and its successors mark the future of newspapers, and that “by 2020 entry-level devices to read the news will cost less than $10 and often be given away. More sophisticated news readers will be foldable or rollable, gesture controlled and fully interactive.”

He also predicts that “Journalism will be increasingly crowdsourced. Substantial parts of investigative journalism, writing and news production will be ‘crowdsourced’ to hordes of amateurs overseen by professionals.”

Other speakers at the Sydney event include News Ltd boss John Hartigan and Foxtel CEO Kim Williams.

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