Obviously I have a stake in the future of newspapers, but I am getting very bored with all of the talk about newspapers dying a terrible death at the hands of the Internet. See Here!
I believe that people are getting too caught up the the word newspaper. Yes, it is used to describe a group of words, pictures and graphics that are physically printed on a sheet of paper. This was how phrase "newspaper" was coined. That word describes the product or the delivery method of the company at hand but not the company itself. We don't call Coca-Cola "cans full of soda" or "bottles of brown liquid." But this is how they deliver their product to me, so why not?
All I am saying is that you cannot say that newspaper companies are dying. Sure there may be less physically printed products in the future, but the ideas that found newspaper companies will never be extinct. This is because people will need to have information to enrich their lives. How this gets delivered to them will change with the times. In the old days information was passed by the telling of stories and the singing of songs and news was spread by word of mouth. Then came along hieroglyphics, the written word, smoke signals, telegraph, telephone, television and finally the Internet.
I tell my employees that our job is to give information to our readers and to bring buyers and sellers together. We currently happen to do this most effectively through the printed product. I believe this method of delivery will change in the future and is already changing right now. But our job as a newspaper company will not change. And that need for information by the human race will not either.
-t
