Newspapers May Never Leave, and That's Okay

After Johannes Gutenberg's reinvention of the moveable printing press through the incorporation of metal, there was an overwhelming expansion of mass production in the world, and especially for one specific medium: newspaper. Despite it being seen as one of the most useful means of communication when it was first invented though, many people today seem to feel that newspapers are outdated and need to just be ridden of altogether. But I disagree; the importance of the newspaper in the past was quite evident, but I think that importance is also still very alive and well in today's world (just for differing reasons).

Around the time they were first invented, newspapers were seen as a golden tool for spreading and communicating information and news. It was one of the first mediums, meaning it was also one of the first devices used to release information to a mass audience, which is a feat in and of itself. But one specific crucial event took place a couple hundred years after the newspaper's invention which would solidify history and ideas far beyond the realm of simply newspapers themselves.

John Peter Zenger, a publisher of a newspaper in colonial North America, had criticized the governor of a colony and was put on trial for it. But he was found not guilty because what he had written in his newspaper was the truth. This result and newfound principle was so impactful then that later it was even written into the Constitution that people have the freedom of press and speech. Through the newspaper, journalists were able to establish a right to deliver the truth to others without corruption getting in the way.

Even in our modernized world, I believe that the newspaper is still a very essential medium. Honestly, I don't think that we give the newspaper enough credit. Often times it seems that we take the newspaper and its many advantages for granted due to our increasing use of technology. But as we learned in one of our previous lectures, the newspaper actually has a quality that neither televised information or the Internet will ever have: physical existence. The newspaper will always be a hard-copy item that you can hold, something that is tangible and takes up mass. With this one sole detail, the newspaper provides so many uses that we would not have access to while looking at a digital screen. You can cut out a portion of the newspaper that you want to keep or you can store newspapers whole and even keep records with them.

And the physicality of newspapers actually connects to another point that distinguishes them as non-linear. When it comes to newspapers, you can just pick one up, flip to a section, and only read a particular story that you wanted to read. You aren't forced to receive all the other information in the articles before that specific one like you would if you were listening to the news on the television. You can control when and where you receive the information, and you wouldn't have the possibility of missing a detail because you weren't paying attention at a certain time; the newspaper will always be there and will always have the information readily accessible.

In the end, I can agree with some of my fellow classmates on how newer media may provide information faster or easier, but those media certainly don't lessen the history and unique attributes that keep the newspaper relevant today.