We Have a New Printing Press: Its Called the Internet

Newspapers are a dying art for a reason.  They used to serve the average man with a standard outlet to the rest of the world.  Mortgage rates, stock prices, real estate, job opportunities, world news, local news, obituaries.  Today however, the world is at your fingertips.  Who needs to search wanted ads when there are thousands of websites that play host to this.  Who needs stock prices when most people either pay someone else to do it or use etrade.  We have already discovered that news is in no way dependent on newspapers today.  There are thousands of blogs, news sites, and television shows devoted to keeping the public informed.  House hunting is reserved for Craigslist or real-estate sites, and honestly, as most people live in suburban neighborhoods, real estate shopping is even easier with planned open house events for entire sections of cities.  Printed newspapers are obsolete other than the joy of getting to solve the crossword puzzle with a pen.  If for no other reason, newspapers should be stopped because of the environmental waste the pose.  If there is a non-invasive paperless option like the Internet to work in the same capacity that the newspaper once did, why not use it? 

As for democracies dependence on newspapers, I don’t necessarily agree with that either.  I understand and fully support that the people must be kept informed about the political and social arena in which our government is functioning in order to maintain such government; however, as mentioned previously, there are thousands of sources that play host to this very task.  I myself am a participating citizen and rarely do I have contact with a physical newspaper.  I understand that many aforementioned computer sources get their information from journalists, so I fully support the major news sources staying intact.  I just feel that instead of focusing their attention on published sources, they should focus on cyber publications and simply find a better method of financially securing those sources.

 The article “With No Newspapers, as Thomas Jefferson Knew, Democracy Suffers” quoted Thomas Jefferson as saying "If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn't hesitate to choose the latter."  Maybe Jefferson would choose that option when newspapers were the only source of political knowledge, but in today’s vibrant age of technology, newspapers are only an outdated bystander to the powerhouse of information that is the web.  He wanted something out there that got information to the people in the most rapid and available way, and we have that, the Internet.  The fact that people still want the paper is more of a moment of nostalgia for times of the past when sitting with a cup of coffee and a newspaper was a daily thing than a necessary and vital part of our government.