Saturday, April 18, 2009

The Demise of Newspapers


I imagine a century ago there was a blacksmith specializing in wagon wheels that criticized these new fangled horseless carriages as a fad of the wealthy. He probably was unwilling to adapt to the oxy-acetylene torch and proudly clung to the trditions of the trade. The environment changed and he failed not adapt. That trade is now extinct.

The same is happening with the newspaper. It will always be yesterday's news. The Daily Oklahoman had sales people near the door of Target trying to get subscribers to sign up with a special deal. I was talking to the guy and made the point that by the time I finished my first cup of coffee in the morning I already had scanned the web for the major news of the day. Second cup is dedicated into a closer look at the interesting stuff. Things that I would not know about until tomorrow if I waited for their paper. Their method of disseminating news requires high cost and massive equipment while the only thing the internet needs to do is move electrons.

They either adapt to the new world or go the way of the blacksmith.

( In the case of the printed MSM it only hastens the demise when what they print is so tainted with unabashed bias. )

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