It Ain't Over Til It's Over

In a society where we believe that the internet is the answer to all things, it was interesting to read the study’s evaluation of that belief. According to their research, the internet isn’t the end-all-be-all of news, for several reasons:

1. people are less satisfied with the experience of reading something online
2. people think that free news (most internet news) is bad/low quality news
3. people like tangible things

The first point rings true with me. I hate when ads pop up while I’m reading something online. I’m not super tech-savvy, so it usually takes a bit for me to figure out how to make it go away or turn the sound off of the video or whatever needs to be done so that I can finish reading the article. With print newspapers, the ads aren’t blocking the news content, and if you want to ignore them completely, you can. I also hate reading on screens in general, never mind the distracting ‘extras’.

The second point is a little less applicable to me. My primary news source is TheSkimm, which as most of you know is a free, daily news email service. I have never questioned the validity of what I read in those emails (that may say more about me than about the news) and I don’t think that it is any less trustworthy because it’s free. I think this point is relevant to a generation that is used to working hard for things because they don’t come free. Because of that, they question the reliability of something that you can just take without giving something in return -- they believe that there must be some tradeoff waiting if they consume free news from the internet. On the other hand, our generation grew up with the internet and we are accustomed to searching for and finding just about anything that we are looking for for free. It’s part of our routine, and as such, it doesn’t phase us (at least it doesn’t phase me) to consume free news. 

The final point is hard to disagree with, and for me, it goes beyond newspapers. I mean, I printed out this thirty page study because it is easier for me to digest what I am reading if it is in a print format. I don’t own a Kindle or an iPad because I want to read actual, physical books. I like the substance. It makes whatever I am experiencing -- news, narrative, etc -- more real. An article in the Scientific American said that modern screens “fail to adequately recreate certain tactile experiences of reading on paper that many people miss.” I’m definitely one of those people. 

I haven’t lost sight of the joy of partaking of print media -- books, magazines, and occasionally a newspaper. I don’t want to see it disappear, run out of town by the big, bad internet. But the truth is, the internet isn’t really to blame. In her article about the Ramen Noodle Theory, Professor Chyi describes the frenzy that newspapers have worked themselves into over the proclamation that print news media is dying. The truth is, the publications are killing themselves. The continual cutting of resources for print editions to expand an online presence that is not exponentially beneficial will be the downfall of newspapers, not the internet itself. 

It’s high time that everyone takes a deep breath and calms down for a second. All it takes is a little understanding of what people really want and need. There is a market for print format news and it is likely that it will be there for years to come. It’s tradition, it’s science, and it’s personal -- it fulfills peoples’ needs in a way that digital news can’t. In the famous words of Yogi Berra, “it ain’t over til it’s over.”