I have never been one for buying newspapers,I find that they always have yesterdays news in them.
News is a highly perishable product and so you want to get it as fast as possible. In Victorian times I’m sure the newspaper was a very good way of getting up do date with current affairs. Reporters in the field would write their article then have it couriered/posted back to England where it was printed,this process could take days if not weeks. But this was the best system at the time. Today with web sites,TV &radio etc. there is a significant reduction in latency. You can now get the reports from the other side of the planet in a few seconds.
So with all this wealth of news over modern media,and some of it not so modern such as radio,but still quantum leaps above newspapers in the speed stakes;is there still a place for 12~24 hour old news delivered on a dead tree?
Up until recently I think most people would have said yes. Newspapers are extremely portable,don’t need charging,are easy to pick up almost anywhere and relatively cheap.
I have always thought it best to aggregate your news from several sources,most news agencies have loyalties to one political group. The BBC are state sponsored so they will always have a bias to the current government. So it’s always wise to get more than one view on a story. So it’s worth buying more than one paper to formulate your own opinion.
It’s also worth while getting your news from outside of your country,this is possible with newspapers but way more expensive and even more delayed. In the UK the government can slap a D-notice on the media stopping them from reporting on a story. With the net it’s trivial to circumvent this censorship and I would suggest imperative to do to ensure you are seeing the big picture,not just the one the government would have us read and believe.
As most people now have cell phones with radios,podcatchers &pervasive connections to the net then it becomes easy to listen/read any story anywhere from any source. What if you happen to be on the subway or on a plane you ask? Well if you subscribe to your news sources with RSS your phone can at regular intervals download the story’s and store them for later listening/reading. This all happens in the background without you needing to manage it. If a new development happens then the story will get updated,unlike newspapers.
Battery life is less of an issue now on phones and with Nokia exploring charging over the air,a flat battery may cease to be an issue. I have used RSS with my eReader which is a joy to read from and I have never managed to flatten the battery due to the amazing e-ink technology. Electronic devices can also store a truly amazing amount of readable material on them at no extra weight or size. It can also easily be searched. Lugging round just a dozen or so newspapers is a chore.
With 3G connected eReaders the eInk newspaper in Minority Report is almost here. Although I am not sure why you would need a display on both sides if the unit,well OK I do,it’s a Hollywood thing.
As I don’t own a TV or listen to the radio I mainly get my news via the web,mostly via podcasts as I like to listen whilst cycling to work. I also subscribe to a couple of news services that push headlines to me on SMS via Twitter. So as a story breaks I get a 140 character synopsis with a link to the full story that I can follow up using the phones browser,it works very well. I get these updates as they happen wherever I am as long as I have a signal.
When US Airways Flight 1549 went down in the Hudson Twitter was the first place the story broke. Even images of the accident were on TwitPic way before CNN or anyone else pitched up. Same when Michael Jackson popped his moon boots.
Aside:Do you remember that scene in ‘Smooth Criminal’where he leans at impossible angles without falling over? I always thought it was a tilting floor or wire work etc. Turns out it was a special shoe that MJ had patented himself. Crazy kid.
Recently I have been offered a free ‘Evening Standard’on my way home from work. Is this a sign that newspapers are finally falling to other media for news delivery? It’s very hard to see how they can compete with modern media. I could write news articles and post them on this web site and anyone with an internet connection has instant access to it and that’s for pretty much no money. There is no extra cost for distributing it to one reader or everyone on the planet. To distribute this blog via paper format to just the UK would cost thousands.
It will be interesting to see what impact GoogleWave has on news. As I understand it you can have many people collaborate on a thread or story. So when a story breaks only one person may post something but then as other people can add/edit the story as they get there view of events. Rather like a Wiki.
I think the news paper is a niche market now,reserved for people who like to sit at home surrounded by various newspapers and wade through them on a Sunday in a DR Watson ‘waiting for Holmes to do something interesting’sort of way. I guess I will still need newspapers for swatting flies and protecting my floor and furniture when decorating.
Links:
Ugh,I liked! So clear and positively.