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 much room in a newspaper to offer the news the staff feels is of interest to its readership. This is basically a function of the economics of the business. The amount of advertising the newspaper includes has a bearing on their ability to offer the news. The price of paper, supplies and distribution all combine to give the editors a fixed limit of size. With the internet, this is less of an issue allowing for a greater range of topics.
As stated before, there is a fixed amount of information within the confines of a daily edition. If there is an ongoing situation of interest you only have one option with a newspaper, which is to keep the older issues or travel to your local library to access the previous articles. The internet has repositories easily searched with keywords relating to the article subjects.
Another item for consideration is the overall toll newspapers take on the environment. Factories are necessary to produce the ink, as well as the paper the news is printed on. After a patron finishes with the newspaper it is either translated into trash or taken for recycling. Even with the best efforts of those environmentally conscious souls, recycling still has a significant cost. With internet offerings there is no waste.
There is a generation of Americans that will never give up their paper copies of the news. But this generation is also approaching the part of their life when age takes them away from us. Within the next three decades this group of folks will be a memory just as I expect the newspaper to be. While it will be odd, there just are not enough reasons to prevent the demise. I guess we will miss newspapers, but the benefits will be enough to satisfy our needs.