Will Technology Finally Wipe Out the Newspaper?

by Neil Bamforth

With the advent of the internet, many predicted that newspapers would soon become a footnote in history. Technology would wipe them out forever. To be honest, that didn’t seem an unreasonable conclusion to make. Up to date news at the fingertips of everybody with internet access. How could newspapers compete with that? Well, up to now, many seem to be managing fine.

Admittedly most newspapers have websites so it isn’t actually necessary to go out and buy one, yet they still appear in print and people do continue to buy them.

I assume they aren’t buying them in the numbers they once did but, clearly, enough are still being sold to justify their continued existence and I, for one, celebrate the fact.

Perhaps it’s an age thing? I don’t know. Somehow the world wouldn’t seem right to me without newspapers. It’s like books. The advent of Kindle would see the demise of books – but it didn’t. The arrival of the compact disc would see the extinction of the vinyl record but it didn’t.

In fact, vinyl records are seeing huge sales increases lately.

Perhaps technology has something to learn. Perhaps we aren’t ready – if we ever will be – to see all the things we grew up with vanish in a tidal wave of technological beeps.

When I see a ‘headline’ on a media website that is wrong in a funny way, for some reason I just move on. When I see a headline in a newspaper that is wrong in a funny way I laugh and show it to other people. Is it that there is, somehow, more intimacy in a newspaper than a PC screen?

Classic ‘cock-up’ headlines seem far funnier in print than they do on a screen. Well, they do to me anyway.

As most of you readers are American, I will use American newspapers mainly as examples.

The Pittsburgh Post once ran a headline ‘Forecasters call for weather on Monday’. Apparently, there wasn’t going to be any weather for the rest of the week. Why does that look funnier in a newspaper than on a media site? No idea. It just is to me.

Baseball player Pat Venditte is ambidextrous. The headline announcing his ability to pitch with either arm stated ‘Amphibious pitcher makes debut’. Two good arms AND gills eh?

“Missippi’s literacy program shows improvement” is another classic. “Federal Agents Raid Gun Shop, Find Weapons” – really? Wow!

Perhaps it is just me, although I think it isn’t. If it was there’d only be one newspaper a day sold and, as I generally read The Daily Telegraph, others such as The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Mirror and so forth would be stuffed. Actually, that might not be such a bad thing come to think about it.

So, as we find ourselves washed down the rapids of ever-increasing technology, isn’t it quite nice to relax in an armchair, brandy on the side table, and gently peruse the newspaper. Clearly not the morning one if you’ve got a brandy on the go of course unless you have a very serious problem.

Let’s not forget the ‘letters to the editor’ pages too. Sitting there eating breakfast reading the latest letter from ‘Angry of Tunbridge Wells’ has just got to beat sitting at a PC screen. Besides, if your runny egg drips onto your newspaper you won’t find a computer repair shop charging you $100 to clean up the keyboard.

So what do you chaps and chappesses think then? Is the determination of some of us to not let technology completely take over a cause worth fighting or, are we ultimately doomed to have ‘Angry of Tunbridge Wells’ turned into a byte.

Come the revolution, if I’m in charge, I’ll ban mobiles and bring back carrier pigeons.

My daughter says I’m a Luddite. Well, better than a silly old fool methinks.

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