It’s not the same as reading the newspaper.
Going online to various websites run by newspapers is a totally different, and considerably less satisfying, experience than picking up the real thing and reading it.
People will tell you periodically that printed newspapers will one day disappear to be replaced by scads of stories on newspaper websites that are accessible at the flick of a computer switch.
Ah, I don't think so.
The case of the over-diagnosed death of the book comes to mind.
It's possible, of course, that books and newspapers will go the way of the Dodo, but highly unlikely.
The computer has insinuated its way into our lives in ways we could not have imagined a few decades ago.
When I was in Grade 9, I did my classroom speech on The Teaching Machine, based on an article out of Scientific American magazine. The article outlined how one day students would sit in front of a machine that would help them learn just as much as the teacher did.
Of course, I’m thinking to myself that this is complete codswallop, but everyone will get a real kick out of the fantasy.
Twenty years later we were ditching our Underwood typewriters for just such “teaching machines.”
The subject of the newspaper-in-hand versus the newspaper online has come up in newsroom conversation and, to my surprise, some of my younger colleagues, (yes, that’s everyone) agree that actually holding a paper is a far superior experience to reading online.
For one thing, it’s very hard to find everything on the web.
Not all the content makes it online. When there’s a hot issue boiling, you can’t see the letters to the editor spread across a double-page that instantly smacks you in the face with the force of public opinion like you can in the paper.
The editorial cartoon, the photographs and the coloured comics just don't have the same impact.
Although the word “browse” is used to describe what you do on a website, it’s a misnomer. The dictionary says that browse means, “to glance at random through a book, magazine etc.” The key word is at random.
When you have a newspaper in your paws, you can randomly glance at different parts of an article, peruse all of the sub-heads to see if you're interested in an article or jump sections with ease to get to the end. If you see a story on a turn page that catches your attention, you can quickly double back.
The work of ranking and ordering the day's events has already been done for you and you can partake in the delicious art of second-guessing those decisions.
And those juicy little tidbits, like the one about the PETA guy changing his name to Kentucky Fried Cruelty, those jump right out at you.
My reticence to embrace the online newspaper experience may just be old-fashioned orneriness to change. But for me the sound of the Saturday paper landing with a resounding thud on the front porch conveys the awaiting pleasure of hours curled up on the couch watching another day of human drama drift by, one flowing page after another.