Monday, September 25, 2006

Is the print newspaper, yesterday's news?

When I started this weeks assignment about comparing the San Jose Mercury Newspaper and online versions, I began to make note of differences immediately. While reading the print version I made note of the types of advertisements and how they were layed out. When I went online to the Mercury News website I noticed a lot of differences.
Advertising is a different beast on the computer. Not only can there be flashy advertisements that catch the eye, but the reader can click on the advertisement and be linked directly to the products website.
The major difference, however, is content. The front page of the paper today is talking about "How Roadshow got on the Map". Roadshow is a successful Mercury news column about bay area traffic that has helped bring about change. Though it was on the front page of the paper, the Roadshow article is no where to be found on the home page. The thing that is on the home page is breaking news. There is no breaking news section in the paper. There can't be, and the articles in the paper can be found online.
It makes me wonder if we are coming to the end of print news. Is online news the equivalent to MP3's? I know that there are people like my dad who will still get the Sunday paper on a regular basis, and sometimes I know that I will read it when he does. The truth is though I am perfectly happy getting my news online. I can read breaking stories, or search for a subject and see what the latest on that is.

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