Since I was a precocious elementary school student, I have always started my day eating breakfast while reading the morning newspaper. Since those halcyon days many things have changed, but my morning routine has remained the same.
I write a weekly editorial for a newspaper, but I know that print publications will soon be as obsolete as VCR’s and record players.
I reach only a few thousand people writing for my home town newspaper, but I reach tens of thousands, all over the globe, writing for a few Web sites.
From The “Guardian Unlimited”:
“For centuries, readers thumbed through the crackling pages of Sweden’s Post-och Inrikes Tidningar newspaper. No longer. The world’s oldest paper still in circulation has dropped its paper edition and now exists only in cyberspace. The newspaper, founded in 1645 by Sweden’s Queen Kristina, became a Web-only publication on Jan. 1. It’s a fate, many ink-stained writers and readers fear, that may await many of the world’s most venerable journals.”
The handwriting is on the pages of cyberspace: The days of the newspaper are numbered. Soon the venerable “New York Times” will have to change its motto to: All the news fit for cyberspace.
Newspapers are a relic from a bygone era when folks could leisurely read the newspaper while they ate their eggs, bacon and toast. Today folks gobble a Pop Tart while they glance at the Drudge Report or Mensnewsdaily.com.
Only the Internet can keep up with news that changes in the blink of an eye. News sites can be updated and edited countless times throughout the day and night, but a newspaper is “old news” by the time it reaches your doorstep.
Newspapers will always have a special place in my heart, but my brain knows that the Internet is where most people turn to for the latest news.
