May 5, 2009

The Newspaper (as we knew it)

The Times reports today that Amazon is expected to reveal a new electronic newspaper reader (think Kindle, but with a larger screen) in the coming days. That's been the kind of development media-watchers have been saying is desperately needed. But whether it arrives in time to make any difference for America's crashing and burning papers is questionable. (Any hour now The Boston Globe may expire, ironically thanks to pressure from its owner, The New York Times.) The experience of reading a paper in your hands just can't be reproduced with metal and plastic and millions of ones and zeros. It just isn't even close. Yea, I know, who needs ink on their fingers? But some folks say that's a small price to pay for the tactile experience of flipping through the pages, section to section.
C'est la vie.
It's all just a generation divide. Paper and ink are already dead, but the obit hasn't been printed on page G12 yet, so the die-hards don't know it. Once the baby boomers retire and die, nobody will be pining away to return to the good old days of dead-tree publishing. Except perhaps some teens who find themselves without a job they can do with just a bike and a notebook, and some quaint surviving curmudgeons who can then be the subject of feature stories on all those handheld rolled up disposable electronic screens.
[UPDATE: The news conference is scheduled for Wednesday morning.]

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