I’ve finally realised what it is that annoys me about the digital editions of newspapers.
I tend to start the morning (read: afternoon) by mashing my laptop keys until Firefox opens itself and bring up Gmail and IrishTimes.com. It’s nice to get out of bed already knowing what’s going on in the world….but no matter how well I’ve converted to my new method of getting the news over the last year or two, I always prefer the paper in hand. I thought it was just an unnatural attraction to newsprint, but this morning the brain finally decided to throw up some reasoning.
IrishTimes.com and various incarnations of other newspapers never let me be finished the news. There isn’t a last page to turn, and it’s just a little bit icksome.
I know that the digital editions can be downloaded, if you’re willing to pay pretty much what you would for a hard copy, but it just ain’t quite the same. The attraction of news online is that it’s right there when you wake up and updated instantly. The attraction of the paper is that it’s far more mobile – which is what you want it to be when you pay for it. Try folding your laptop into a readable square on the luas.
In a world of infinite information, I harbour a curious but perhaps understandable attraction to the finite. The feeling of knowing enough is so rare that the idea of having ‘finished’ the news for the day is one to seek out and enjoy. I like turning over the back page, safe in the idea that I know everything the media thought it worth knowing – or even just one organisation.
I know that the internet is better. I know it has the news first, I know it has news that newspapers don’t carry – but I like pulling out my paper in the car or in a queue or – anywhere really. I could probably be found with my broadsheet in hand in pubs and clubs and all if it didn’t go beyond the bounds of acceptability. It’s a personal affliction – I also sit in the car with the radio on long after I’ve parked so I can hear the end of talk shows because I’ve learned that there’s just too much information out there that I don’t yet know.
There’s often chat about newspapers dying out and most people think they will. Freesheets try to boost their popularity and the print industry scales back to stay afloat – but I think they’ll survive for as long as they remain beautifully mobile and finite. Alright, so maybe what you read is out of date by the time it goes to print – but it holds its value for far longer.
News outfits where there is a print edition of the work seem to deal with their web presence a little differently to media that exists solely online. I guess there’s just a difference between trying to become an online news outfit from what you were before, and firmly establishing yourself as one from the off. For starters, maybe it’s just me but I always find the print editions better edited – as if the organisation tries really hard to transition to web journalism but just can’t really care enough to embrace it. Meanwhile, solely web outfits don’t really do the digital edition, and I wonder what they’re archiving – the page or the story?
I’m doing a thesis at the moment while involves trawling through the microfilm of dusty old newspapers. Researching the past isn’t just about what you can find of your subject in the news but what page it was on, whether it was above of below the fold, all of the little things that give you context for just how important or not so it was.
In the transition to digital media, we should spare a thought to what we’re leaving behind for the researchers of the future. Perhaps they wont hit the the print media too often, since there’ll be plenty of footage, but when they do the sorting of wheat from chaff is going to be a damn painful process. I do believe in citizen journalism and I’ve learned things from blogs and webpages that newspapers never thought to tell me, but there’s still a lot to be said for the news pyramid and dumping in left hand pages and linear, tidy pages and all the other things the pros have going for them.
Just on the last bit about the research. I had an interesting experience with my thesis.
I needed to get hold of old copies of the Examiner, Times, Indo, and Herald. I’ve forgotten how I knew but I knew I could get the latter three in normal still-a-paper-mode in the Pearse St Library (which was so serene, ooh I loved it) but wasn’t so sure about The Paper.
So I rang the Examiner’s offices and they said that I’d need to go to the Cork City Library to look at microfilm. Now I later learnt that I could have looked at them in the National Library up here in Dublin, but I’m glad I didn’t beforehand because I managed to turn my research into a bit of an adventure.
I had to get the first Dublin-Cork Aircoach of the morning which was at 7am. The driver was somewhat surprised to see anyone getting on board and I was still a lone traveller by the rest stop in Urlingford. So groggy was I that all concept of geography had left me and I asked were we in Moate as I was used to that being a rest stop on bus journeys. Of course none of these journeys were southbound.
A smashing breakfast roll later and I was back on. A couple of people boarded at Cashel and a few more at Fermoy and the bus pulled into Cork with just 6 passengers.
I moved swiftly towards the library where I was told I’d have to wait an hour. When I came back I started rifling through the microfilm, photocopying everything. I was told there’d be another wait for the copies so I skipped off to find my buddy Andy.
Now at this stage Andy was working in a net café in Cork so I strolled down and asked if he was there, to which the dude at the counter replied “No, he’s off chasing reindeer in Lapland” which I took as some cryptic way of saying he was asleep in bed or something. In fact there was nothing cryptic at all, he had decided to go to Lapland for a holiday in June of all months.
Got the microfilm prints and nipped into this café I had spotted near the library. Wow, Lulu’s Gastronomic Experience (best name ever) was quite the delight.
My burger and chips featured enough onion rings as a topping on the burger to count as a portion in your local chippy and it all tasted great. Then for dessert, Swiss ice-cream. Yes, yes, oh yes.
After that it was a quick legger to the Aircoach again and back to the schmoke. A far better way to do research then getting bored in the National Library ever could have been.
I get in so much trouble doing the online soduko’s my monitor is practically covered in numbers in permanent marker pen!
@Emmet at least you got to have a thesis adventure. I’ve done all my dusty microfilm research in the NLI and while they’re lovely, it’s a terrifically boring place. The highlight of the day is using their nifty lockers with the keypads and pressing setting the microfilm feeder to fast so it makes the zippy noise.
@Keiron I love Sudoku! Infinitely cooler than magic number squares!
There’s just kind of a different way of interracting with news online anyway. The hierarchy of things like what page something is on kinda falls away with the idea that when you buy a newspaper you are accepting the news as prescribed where as when you go online you can search for the news you want to read and you can box off exactly what you want to know about. Print papers are just better because it doesnt have to occur to you to find something out its just presented to you. You have to look for things actively online. Sorry for the really long comment. You provoked a response though so well done on that.
Good point, I hadn’t considered that. I suppose everyone chooses their news vendor to a degree. You know what you’re getting when you buy The Irish Times versus The Sun versus The Daily Mail, but online you can basically use search terms to seek out the opinion you wish to read. Hmm, scary a bit.
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