jh.essay 03272009

Have newspapers become a medium of the past or do they still play an important role in people's lives?

response:

Along with the rapid development of internet, information is spreaded far more fast and widely to people than ever before. Recently, a famous newspaper company built up in American a century ago annonced that they had decided to swtich to a online publish company and close the traditional paper publication department. Therefore, people wonder whether traditional newspapers become outdate. Is it still playing an important role in our lives?

It's definitely not a effective way to spread news or information with papers. As a well-established industry, traditional publishing business has a intact system for publishing newspapers. Because of this, it costs a lot, money and time, in the process of producing a newspaper, such as  materials sourcing, typesetting, transporting, selling, etc. People have to pay for an newspaper with stale news. On the contrary, people will get the newest information withouth any payment, because it's very easy to publish an news on website.

At the same time, it's still the most convenient way to read news in the papers. Differ from getting information from internet, people can enjoy stories and comments without electricity. And an newspaper is easily carried by any people. However, the lightest device which could be connected to internet today is weighted more than 100 grams, and this device could not continue working more than 20 hours. 

In additon, newspaper is hardly harmful to human beings. It's well known that any device with wireless commucation abilities will creates a risk of harm to human health because of radio emissions. And, it's not a healthy life style to work with a computer for long period because that the display device and computer circuitries will cause radiation injury as well. By comparison, the side effects caused by newspapers are negligible.

As a whole new kind of intermedium, Internet bring more convenience to us in our daily lives. It has brought people much closer. But the emergence of Internet means not traditional medium, such as newspapers, will disappear in our lives. We can still find a lot of we need from them.

By J.H