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The New Paperboy

This blog post by BeliefNet editor Steven Waldman got me thinking about my mornings with my wife. Each morning around our breakfast table Ann and I digest the news.. she reads the latest in the Kansas City Star and I browse the news on my laptop.. from the NY Times, the Associated Press, Fox News, MSNBC, the Wall Street Journal and, of course, the KC Star.. I also peruse many other sources like Politico, Huffpo, Slate and some other news blogs.

Back to Steven's article.. here is an excerpt:

Last night, I was trying to find out information about the horrifying situation and in Iran. I turned to CNN which had Larry King interviewing bikers. MSNBC had a documentary about prisons. FoxNews had the Huckabee show, talking about credit cards.

Then I went to HuffingtonPost, TalkingPointsmemo.com and AndrewSullivan, all of whom had real-time YouTube videos from the protests, Twitter-based reporting, pictures posted on Facebook, great analysis.
Steven's post reminded me of how the delivery of the news has changed in the last several years.. even this morning I started following the Twitter feed from some students in Iran. It gets me to wondering if the neighborhood paperboy will soon be a thing of the past. It seems to me that the internet is the new paperboy. What do you think?
Posted:

8 comments:

  1. Doc RyJune 15, 2009 at 11:27:00 AM CDT

    i guess we have to embrace it all :D no use choosing only a single medium of delivering the news... it really is MULTI-media now

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  2. kc bobJune 15, 2009 at 12:12:00 PM CDT

    Multi-media.. good word for it Ryan.

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  3. BrianJune 15, 2009 at 3:58:00 PM CDT

    Paperboy? Has there been a paperboy in the last decade? Two decades? Our newspaper is delivered by car. I can't recall the last time I saw a paperboy or knew who our carrier was.

    OTOH, I only get the newspaper on Sunday. By the time a newspaper is delivered, the news is old. I get the Sunday paper for the comics, the ads (what's on special this week) and the sports page (analysis- not scores).

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  4. Bar L.June 16, 2009 at 2:12:00 AM CDT

    I get my news online too and love it. I watch TV news shows mostly for entertainment value these days. This was a good post. I do feel bad for the newspapers though....

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  5. BrianJune 16, 2009 at 6:19:00 AM CDT

    Barbara,

    I feel a little bad for newspapers. But, like record stores, horse carriage makers, milk men, etc. etc., they must change or die. It's the natural order of things. IMO, newspapers need to focus more on editorials and in-depth analysis. Also, they could do more on local events and issues and probably maintain a following. But, the function of serving up the latest news has been taken from them and there's no turning back the clock on that one.

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  6. kc bobJune 16, 2009 at 12:49:00 PM CDT

    Good point Brian.. the paperboy is now the paperguy.. still on wheels.. albeit 4 wheels instead of 2 :)

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  7. pearlieJune 19, 2009 at 12:15:00 PM CDT

    That is very much a reality here now. The newspapers in our country is pretty much controlled and there isn't much freedom in speech but in our recent elections in Mar 08 was a change because of the proliferation of blogs.

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  8. kc bobJune 19, 2009 at 5:15:00 PM CDT

    The tweets from Iran seem to testify to what you commented Pearlie.

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