My first real job was delivering the Tacoma News Tribune, I was nine. It wasn't the best pay, but what the heck did I care? I got to buy the Star Wars Pod Racer Special Edition Nintendo 64, with my own money. I bought a camcorder next. I made skateboard films with my friends in the Proctor District, by our standards they were awesome. I had money in my pocket at all times, and still had started to save for college. Who starts to save for college at nine? I did.
I'd like to think that the newspaper will last many more decades but I don't believe that will occur. The newspaper industry that I worked in was dying even when I was getting started in the late nineties and early two-thousands. Every month my subscription base would shrink by one or two, rarely growing growing. The only time it didn't, was when the News Tribune offered a cash reward for gaining more subscriptions via knocking on doors and getting home owners to accept a 3 month free trial and paying for a year of subscription if I remember correctly.
People today don't need a subscription to anything, not even one to an internet service to get the news, weather, sports, or anything else a newspaper has to offer except a physical form. Walking into a coffee shop with a laptop or an iPod Touch is all you need to read the News Tribune, New York Times, or any other "newspaper" around the world. Digital connection is for our time, the next best thing. Just as everyone thought that video would replace the radio medium, newspapers won't be immediately replaced by digital news but will be phased out or be used in a new form.
Bonus:
Video Killed the Radio Star - The Buggles
(The first music video to be played on MTV)
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It would be the same feeling that if someone work at car dealership, they would feel old when the flying car came out in the future.
ReplyDeleteNowdays, it is hard to find nine years old kid delivering the Tacoma News Tribune. Maybe nine years old kid delivering the thousands of Tacoma Newspaper in one second by Internet.
I agree with with your last paragraph. People don't need subscriptions anymore. All they need is a computer and internet connection. Pretty much everybody has a computer these days so why pay for a subscription when you can read the same news for free right?
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