I completely forgot what I had planned to blog about today when I read The Daily Texan‘s most recent Twitter message (or Tweet, if you will). For those of you who aren’t familiar with The Daily Texan, it’s the University of Texas’ student newspaper.
The Tweet read: Thank you to the Texan printing press crew for all the years of service. We appreciate everything you have done for us.
What?! So I looked back for more information and the previous Tweet said:We’re working on the last issue to be printed on our printing press…
I know I’m no longer a student there, and thus, it doesn’t really matter. However, I am incredibly sad about the news of their switch to a purely digital format. There’s something to be said about actually holding a newspaper in your hands. I loved picking up a Texan every morning on the way to class – not to mention the hours of fun it provided when class got boring. Err, I didn’t say that!
In addition, I have had the same issue with Amazon’s Kindle, which is an electronic device that allows you to read books, newspapers and magazines digitally. It’s a lot easier than carrying around a stack of books. I could get delivery of my hometown newspaper over here, and I could *gasp* get timely delivery of Newsweek (I’m canceling my subscription because they routinely arrive 2-3 weeks late, and who wants to read old news?!). That being said, I prefer to lug around that big stack of books and magazines. I love tearing out recipes or neat ideas from a magazine. I love marking up books, dog-earring pages and holding books in my hands. I love love love doing the puzzles in the newspaper, and I enjoy being able to flip through the pages at will without having to click buttons on an electronic device and perhaps miss something because I didn’t scroll all the through the page.
For me, this same concept applies to photos. I love having access to my photos online, because I can search them easily, edit them, etc., but when it comes down to it, I want to have them all printed in a photo album.
Am I crazy? Am I in the minority and most other people prefer digital access to media? Am I the only one who feels this way? Am I missing ? What are your thoughts?
– Sarah
I love magazines, that will never change. And I don’t want to read a book on the Kindle. I like to hold it in my hands and turn actual pages. But for actual NEWS, I go online.
I’m curious about the Diamonds. We used to make the baseball players’ senior scrapbooks out of the Daily Texan articles. Interesting.
Apparently the Twitter messages were misleading…I’ll post about it again today.
That is sad about the Daily Texan, but I can completely understand where they are coming from. I do have some insider information about how much it costs to print papers though, and our 20 page paper costs about 12 cents each and we print 50,000 a week. We sell a bunch of ads, the Texan does not and thus you can see why they would make this decision.
As far as the Kindle goes, I love mine. I hate lugging around a bunch of books (like on my trip to Europe in March) and I find myself reading more because of the Kindle.
I read a LOT of news. Like nearly 100 articles a day, and I would never be able to pull that off in non-digital form. I do agree with Chelsea that I enjoy magazines “in the rough” but for newspapers and books give me a digital copy.
Well apparently their Twitter messages didn’t give all the info. I will post more about it today.
Even if the Texan were in financial trouble, I think the Alumni should support it.
I wish we could continue in the current “to each his own” format we’ve enjoyed for the last couple of years (You like your digital books on Kindle? Here ya go! Want to read the Texan? Here are TWO ways to do it!). Unfortunately, the actual printing business is EXPENSIVE and may be a thing of the past in a decade. Personally, I like holding the real deal in all formats. Besides, I worry that having all of our knowledge contained in a digital format makes us very susceptible to its loss (if the power goes out or if the government chooses to censor or…).
I agree, Jim.
It does make me nervous to have everything solely in digital format as well. I’m always concerned that hard drives will fail, there will be an “attack” on our networks, etc. and data will be lost.