Fuck the mirror and all that tabloid shite that passes as news, I hope they all go bust.
Without them, there will still be access to free information online. Most of what makes it onto the pages/ sites of these companies is just filler anyway, they just generate useless stories to pad out the handful of stories that actually hold relevance to any of our lives. Either that or they plant stories to support a larger agenda.
I write reviews every now and then for a music website and the guy who runs it had a go at me for not paying for the music I listen to. He said that, if we all downloaded music for free, record companies will go bankrupt and bands will stop being able to make music.
My stance is that that is bullshit, people with a passion for music will still create, even if the paychecks aren't coming their way. On top of that, we won't have the airwaves polluted with Miley Cystitis and all that shite because they're only in it for the money anyway. If anything, the overall standard of music made available to the public should improve because of this (although exposure to new music would be more limited).
Anyway, point is that I believe the same applies to the film industry and journalism; there are more than enough people willing to do it for free. There will be obvious downsides but there are also plenty of upsides.
Btw, I do pay for music (depending on the label) but only if I know I like the album. I don't earn enough to risk £10 on a potentially shit CD. Usually I'll just buy band merchandise at the gigs.
If you hope all of the national press go bust, what do you think will fill the vacuum it leaves? There will be some very rich people / companies / government bodies with their own agenda who will be dictating the news cycle.
The system we have now of a free press is absolutely essential to democracy. As much as the tabloid press publish some utter click-baiting shite, at least there is competition. A free press means people will be held to account, the truth will out.
Take Murdoch who's the biggest media mogul in the country. If he controlled all of the press, the News of the World hacking scandal would never have come out. He could carry on doing as he pleased, invading people's lives, liberties, and even if he got caught, there would be no alternative press that would report on it.
I'm proud to live in a democratic country, and one of the corner stones of a democracy is a free press. They aren't perfect, but they play an incredibly important role in society. The idea that if all the national papers went bust that some plucky volunteers would research and publish all of the news for us on Twitter is just an absolute fallacy. How would those people survive and make a living, and how could we trust that they were telling the truth if they were not accountable to anyone?
Music is rather different. The cost of producing and marketing music has come down ten fold in the last 20 years. Music can be produced to recordable standard now in a bedroom with £2k worth of equipment. 25 years ago it might cost £2k a hour to work in a studio with comparable technology. Bands can now launch themselves on social media and get millions of plays / views for their songs for absolutely nothing. Again 25 years ago that exposure would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds in marketing, video production etc.
Many people get music for free now, so artists aren't getting the same income from record sales. But songwriters are still getting paid comparable amounts for publishing when their music is used on radio, TV etc, and live gigs have never been more popular, with more people attending music events now than ever before, and prices going up to reflect it. So with music, yes sales are down, but the cost of producing and marketing music has also fallen dramatically, and the live aspect is doing very well.
Journalism is a completely different industry. Newspaper sales are in terminal decline, people are becoming more savvy online using adblockers etc, so even advertising revenues aren't picking up the slack. Music and art plays an important role in society, but it's essentially entertainment. Whether record labels exist in ten years, or whether musicians become millionaires, is debatable, but new music will always be produced regardless.
If national newspapers cease to exist, the ramifications for democratic society are a lot more stark than if the record labels go bust.