This peace of blog is written after I watched "Page one inside the new york time" where they interviewed and filmed some staffers at New York Times while making an effort to advocate the conventional roles that newspapers have assumed.
When I lived in Manhattan about 3 years ago, I was on my way to downtown to participate in a volunteering activity. The rendezvous point was right next to New York Times building. The building, unlike many old ones in Manhattan was somewhat newly built. But according to the film, it now faces the biggest hardship that will put the company in danger. The paper has laid off people, run a pay per view online site to make ends meet. Nevertheless, the appearance of the technology-embedded mediums e.g. twitter and Facebook continues to emerge.
But, will twitter and Facebook be able to substitute New York Time or other newspapers? I hope not. Unlike newspaper that, before releasing news pieces, does fact-check, there is no monitoring or filtering in twitter and Facebook. It is not rare to see fake news running around on twitter such as deaths of celebrities. Moreover, the news conveyed through and shared by twitter and Facebook has its sources from major newspaper.
Of course, you can deliver certain information through twitter or Facebook, but it is usually the case that the information is only the tip of the iceberg. Don't you agree? Both has merits, but also has drawbacks. They are succinct. condensed. You need to squish your information into 140 characters. What is beyond the facts are likely to be omitted and thus spawn misinformation or misconception. And Facebook is no better.
I would say it is still too early to call Demise of Newspaper because there are particular roles that only newspapers can play. This, however, does not retard the speed at which newspaper becomes less valuable in the society. It needs to find a way to hybridize the conventional characteristics of paper and the new technologies. Paper on ipad,, galaxy tab.. yes, it is convenient. You can flip through pages. But is it just me that we are missing something when dealing with these state of the art gadgets? The crisp feeling... that you have after yanking the paper out of the plastic bag at the porch in the morning and reading it on the kitchen table.. and you thumb through it for fear of crumpling the paper accidentally. Twitter does not have that. Ipad can't provide it. Neither can Facebook.
Nonetheless, what we called "personal touch" is disappearing. People don't care about it anymore. And it is quite dreadful.
