As a child, I was fascinated by how newspaper boys would throw newspapers to the 2nd or even 3rd-floor balconies even while riding their cycles on the road. They never missed their target; not even once. It's an art that many cannot master. The men of the household waited enthusiastically for the newspapers to arrive, anytime before 7 a.m. If it got delayed by even a few minutes, you could see angry kakus and Jethus (Bengali words that refer to uncles) at the balcony, waiting to shout at the newspaper delivery boy. Those boys were always on time and only when the newspapers arrived late, they got delayed. If you went to street junctions early in the morning, you could see stacks of newspapers with delivery boys busy sorting and rolling each newspaper, preparing to deliver them on the go. It was a ritual, an everyday ritual. I'm sure it was the same in most cities in India.
The print newspaper is still in circulation, but the ritual of stacking, preparing and delivering them has largely changed, According to people surveyed for the Statistica Global Consumer Survey, 54 percent of urban Indians agreed that they continue to read print newspapers even in the digital age. And yet, most people continue to prefer reading their newspapers online or listening to morning podcasts that deliver the most important news for the day. In the 90s and the decades before that, in most households, the morning would begin with a cup of coffee/tea along with the newspaper. Somewhere down the line, print newspapers have stolen this ritual. Today, most of us are online for most part of the day and if the notifications for any news channels are kept on, flash news gets delivered to the inbox immediately. You don't need to wait for the next day to read details of important news-- cyclones, earthquakes, floods, landslides, obituary, important political developments--every piece of news is available for viewing immediately. In fact, by the time the print newspaper is delivered the next morning, most of the news is old. And for this very reason, many have stopped buying the print newspaper completely. Some, continue to buy but don't read regularly and therefore, use the papers while cleaning the cupboards or wrapping vegetables and flowers to store in the fridge. Those media houses that have adapted well to the digital race are doing well, while those who stood tall in those days but refused to bow down before technology have had to shut shop. It's unfortunate, but that is where the truth lies. If you don't change with the changing times, you must perish. Change is the only constant. Many people find it easy to look up the latest news on their mobiles. Not just that, with the help of links, they can even read related news. You don't really have to carry an extra item in your bag and find a space to be able to spread it out to read. But one thing I like about print newspapers is that you can read the news without the disturbance of online ads that keep popping up to distract your attention when reading on your mobile. Besides, I don't like to scroll up and down, right and left to read one news article; that irritates me because sometimes with a single touch, a particular news I may have been reading may go off, leaving me in another window with an alternate, unconnected news. To come back to the main page in such situations can be very frustrating. And once I get online, I might jump to other social media sites and hence end up spending more time online than I originally intended to. Hence, though cumbersome, I still bat for the print version. What about you? Do you prefer the print version or are you comfortable catching up on the latest news on your mobiles?
This post is part of Blogchatter Half Marathon 2023.
Photo by Amar De on Unsplash
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