by Joe Owens

Created on: April 06, 2009

At one time in our world the only way to collect news was to listen to what your neighbors had to say, especially in regard to which other members of your tribe would up being dinosaur food. Knowing what the weather might be consisted of exiting your cave or whatever else happened to make up your humble abode to check the elements. In this time, there was no way the inhabitants could have imagined a future where news was instantaneous.

With the advent of the printing press, humans had a way to get the news printed on paper so that they could consume it at their leisure. The words people said could be rightly understood and attributed to their source. Coherent conversations between far flung communities was possible, as well as news of their respective tragedies and triumphs. This was a banner advance in technology as it connected our world more than anything had up until that time.

Of course we can claim even more technological advances in our toolboxes today. Computers, phones and the like give us immediate access to the world and its collective stores of unlimited information on virtually any topic. We can know anything we want as quickly as we can communicate our desire to access the pertinent data. Our ancestors would surely be in awe of the power of our devices.

For at least three centuries, the newspaper held a solid position as a conveyor of the news in our world. Even with the advent and growth of radio and television news services, the newspaper was a device that allowed people to read and comprehend the events of their communities and world at their convenience. There has always been a diverse scope of topics that find their home in the newspaper. People have a fond attraction to this media.

At the present though, there is a much more up to the minute medium threatening to dethrone the newspaper once and for all from its long term pinnacle. Internet offerings of news, many from the producers of daily newspapers themselves are rapidly becoming the stalwart in this sector of the news landscape. Dailies are becoming extinct at a rapid pace.

So what are the reasons for this paradigm shift? First of all, the internet provides up to the minute coverage of events. Newspaper has a fixed time frame, which becomes static at the moment the last letter is typed onto the form and the press run begins. From that moment until the point that the next edition begins, there is a lag in information that many people no longer are willing to give up.

Also, there is only so

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