
The day the newspaper died. - ksvs
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2009/01/26/090126crat_atlarge_lepore?currentPage=all
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thomasmallen
For my money, there's still nothing better than a good newspaper. We get the
_Washington Post_ here. On TV, the broadcaster controls the order and scope of
reporting (you're fed the news). On the internet, vital information can easily
become unreachable due to developer mistakes or usability problems.

With a newspaper, everything is in front of you and is in the same place. It's
been in that place for years and will remain there in the near future. If
there were an accepted (and acceptable) format for online news, this would be
a non-issue, but until then, I'll continue to get my news from the newspaper.
It's durable and only requires reading light.

It's also nice to avoid using a screen for everything.

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gravitycop
_For my money, there's still nothing better than a good newspaper. We get the
Washington Post here._

OK. What is the marginal cost of printing and delivering a weekday copy of the
Washington Post?

[http://www.mondaynote.com/2008/09/29/the-economics-of-
moving...](http://www.mondaynote.com/2008/09/29/the-economics-of-moving-from-
print-to-online-lose-one-hundred-get-back-eight)

 _First, the cost structure of a daily. In a typical operation, the biggest
costs are industrial ones: around 25%-35% for paper and printing; another
30%-40% for distribution; around 18-25% for editorial; the remaining 10-15%
are for administrative and marketing expenditures. It varies from country to
country but we can safely assert most of the costs — at least 60% — are
industrial in nature. Evidently, that part disappears when going online._

~~~
thomasmallen
Those stats are mixed. Paper, printing, and delivery are requirements
exclusive to printed news. However, editorial and marketing are not. In any
case, until an online resource can outcompete the printed edition of the
_Post_ , I'll continue to pay the $1-200/year to have it delivered to my door.

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tokenadult
"In the eighteenth century, the death of a newspaper signalled the death of
liberty. What it signals now is harder to know, especially because there’s
death, and then there’s death. If, one day, ink-and-print is dead and gone,
newspapers will endure, wraiths of ether."

There is some good historical perspective on the role of newspapers in this
article. Like many New Yorker articles, it is a good read.

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lacker
"Early American newspapers tend to look like one long and uninterrupted
invective, a ragged fleet of dung barges."

Makes me think of the blogosphere today. I wonder if in 100 years there will
still be internet news, but it will have grown boring. Comment sections will
be full of somewhat-intelligent-but-mainstream discourse, and
antiestablishment types are flocking to the superinternet.

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patrickg-zill
"Mediasaurus" article by Michael Crichton. Nuff said.

