Last saturday morning, at approximately 0830, I was woken by the sound of my phone ringing. Looking at the clock and noting its early hour, I thought “Man, I hope everyone is ok, it’s weird to be getting a call this early.” As I picked up the phone, clearing my throat and rubbing my eyes, I said, “Hello?”. The voice that responded on the other end was unfamiliar, deep, resonant and confident. “Good morning, Mr. Smith, this is Jim calling from the Asbury Park Press. I see here in my records…”, the voice was cut off. “Jim, take me off your list. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you guys, I do not want the paper, now please, take me off your list.” I responded in an annoyed tone, after all it was 0830 on a fucking Saturday morning.“But, Mr. Smith, I see you were once a subscriber of the newspaper, and as a previous subscriber, we are offering a….”, he began to say.
“Just take me off your list.” I stated again, even more irritated.
“Can I ask you why cancelled your subscription in the first place?” Jim retorted.
Now, at that moment, if my mind was clearer and had given the question any thought at all, I would have come up with something better than, “No you can’t, now please take me off your list.” and hung up the phone.
I woke up an hour or so later, and really began to ponder his question of why I cancelled my subscription. It is not that I do not like the news, heck, I read or watch news constantly. It probably constitutes 30% of my leisure time. That was when it hit me, the places I went for my daily dose of the going on in the world were free (in the sense I do not have to pay out of pocket for it). If I want to know what is happening in an election in Europe, I’ll simply go to cnn.com or google for it. The weather in Sydney, Australia? weather.com. If I am not near a computer, I can simply tune to channel 25 or 26 for CNN and MSNBC. What about local news you ask. Easy, I simply go to their website http://app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage, I can read what I want there. Not to mention, I can go to the websites of the other local papers in the area to read stories the Asbury Park Press does not cover.
Unfortunately for the newspapers though the digital age forces them to brandish a double edged sword. Sure, they want people to read the newspaper, but they also need to maintain an online presence because their competitors are doing the same. While I do not know how it is to be done, newspapers need to find a balance between online readers and paper readers; the problem of finding that balance, though, is that the climate is constantly changing. If I had to venture a guess, I would say that the majority of newspaper readers are older. So as they die, as old people do, the number of newspaper subscribers will most likely decline, leaning more towards online readers, thus causing them to try to find that balance again.
The internet also provides the advantage of being able to find and read the opinions of hundreds, if not thousands, of other authors, globally. Sites, like wordpress and blogspot, allow people, like you and me to come out here and lay our thoughts out for the world to see. Sure, some are not based on current events, but many are. Global information is literally seconds away, so why would anyone want to wait a whole day for it?
