I admit to being something of a dinosaur. By that I mean I’m not the most technologically advanced homo sapiens. What can I say, I’m a print guy.
And yet I am fascinated by the burgeoning technology we are using more and more every day in the newspaper business.
If you’re ogling this, you know that I write a daily online blog. I also love the fact that, while our print edition edition comes with some built-in handicaps, those are obliterated when we move into the cyber world.
We can only get so much information into the print edition each day. It’s a finite product. Some of the toughest decisions I make really and truly are not what is going to make it into print each day, but all the stuff that is not. That becomes a non-issue online. The only thing limiting us is how fast we can shovel the information out there.
There is also the matter of time. We print our newspaper once each day and deliver in the early a.m. hours. But news does not stop. Now, neither do we. We can publish information 24 hours a day on our Web site. We can break news immediately, then update it constantly throughout the day.
But the truth is there is one simple thing that is my favorite aspect of the Internet. I was reminded of it again yesterday.
We had posted an early item yesterday morning with some of the initial details concerning a deadly shooting in Upper Darby. But in doing so we listed the incident as occurring on Hampton Road. Which would be fine except for the fact that (as we all know) it is actually spelled Hampden Road.
An online reader called to bring this to my attention. And with a combination of keystrokes, Voila!, it never happened. Hampton magically became Hampden.
That’s as opposed to print, which as I stress to my staff every day, is FOREVER! Once it leaves our plant, there is nothing I can do to retrieve it. I can assure you there have been mornings when I would like nothing more than to visit every house in Delaware County and politely ask them, “Uh, would you mind if I take that paper back.”
As I told another group of students I was speaking with this week, your teachers have not been entirely truthful with you. They teach that the dinosaurs are extinct. I am proof standing in front of you that that is not the case.
Bring in some more technology. Who says you can’t teach an old dinosaur new tricks?
And yet I am fascinated by the burgeoning technology we are using more and more every day in the newspaper business.
If you’re ogling this, you know that I write a daily online blog. I also love the fact that, while our print edition edition comes with some built-in handicaps, those are obliterated when we move into the cyber world.
We can only get so much information into the print edition each day. It’s a finite product. Some of the toughest decisions I make really and truly are not what is going to make it into print each day, but all the stuff that is not. That becomes a non-issue online. The only thing limiting us is how fast we can shovel the information out there.
There is also the matter of time. We print our newspaper once each day and deliver in the early a.m. hours. But news does not stop. Now, neither do we. We can publish information 24 hours a day on our Web site. We can break news immediately, then update it constantly throughout the day.
But the truth is there is one simple thing that is my favorite aspect of the Internet. I was reminded of it again yesterday.
We had posted an early item yesterday morning with some of the initial details concerning a deadly shooting in Upper Darby. But in doing so we listed the incident as occurring on Hampton Road. Which would be fine except for the fact that (as we all know) it is actually spelled Hampden Road.
An online reader called to bring this to my attention. And with a combination of keystrokes, Voila!, it never happened. Hampton magically became Hampden.
That’s as opposed to print, which as I stress to my staff every day, is FOREVER! Once it leaves our plant, there is nothing I can do to retrieve it. I can assure you there have been mornings when I would like nothing more than to visit every house in Delaware County and politely ask them, “Uh, would you mind if I take that paper back.”
As I told another group of students I was speaking with this week, your teachers have not been entirely truthful with you. They teach that the dinosaurs are extinct. I am proof standing in front of you that that is not the case.
Bring in some more technology. Who says you can’t teach an old dinosaur new tricks?
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