Will We Trade In Our Newspapers for Laptops?

Many seem to believe that the internet will eventually become most people’s main medium for receiving news and information, thus resulting in the decline in demand for other news mediums such as newspaper or television. Personally, I don’t think so. James Glenn Stovall’s book entitled Web Journalism: Practice and Promise of a New Medium touches on this topic. Stovall argues the many advantages of this emerging form of Journalism.

The internet is one of the greatest creations that came out of the 20th century. The internet helped to simplify many aspects of our lives. I am able to read up on the latest celebrity gossip, chat with friends, send my parents an e-mail, go shopping, and do my homework all without leaving my computer desk.

The advantages of the internet also carry over into the world of journalism. People are continuously turning to the internet for the current news. I personally do not think that this new wave of computer based news sites will replace the newspapers. At least not for me. The internet offers a wonderful wealth of information, but I would never hand over my daily copy of the New York Post for an electronic version.

It is true the internet offers readers interactivity, flexibility, immediacy, and personalization in its depiction of the news. A reader is able to respond to the author or editor of the site, as well as connect to other sites that the article links to. Readers of online news sites can individualize their account to only show them news article relating to their particular points of interest.

As for creators and editors of these news sites, they are able to offer the readers more options to a news story through websites. They are not limited to the size of the article or the number of pictures printed. Site creators have the flexibility to incorporate audio or video clips along with text and pictures.

This new medium is great and I would not wish for it to be eliminated just to keep newspapers around. I admit that when I am bored and near a computer, the first site I turn to is USA Today. But by no means would I ever stop reading the newspaper because of all these emerging news sites.

My favorite place to read the paper was on the train to work this summer. The newspaper and my i-pod were a great way to spend my hour long commute every morning. It prepared me for any current event discussion that we would have in the office that day. If people were only to rely on computers I would not have been able to do this. Stovall in his writing mentions that it is not as convenient to carry a computer to the bathroom as it is a newspaper. This is the truth. No matter how much convenience the internet has brought to our lives I am confident enough that society is not going to stop reading the morning paper during their commute to work or stop watching the evening news.

Look at it this way, many people believed that the introduction of the television news would have eliminated printed news altogether. But it didnt. So what makes people think that the newspaper is not popular enough to stand up to digital news?