2012 and the Sunset of Newspapers

2012 was the year I stopped reading newspapers.

After a lifetime of ritual, I realised the act of purchasing, unfolding and thoughtfully trawling through a newspaper was like an out-dated religious ceremony long divorced from any original faith and belief.

"How many advertising brochures can they fit in this paper?"

This year I have been unshackled from a compulsive action that has come to hold little value to modern day life. 

Two hundred years ago buying and reading a newspaper meant you were helping battle ignorance, and helping build a “fourth estate” that was a bulwark against repressive and unrepresentative governments.

Not now.  Buying and reading a newspaper is more an act of consumption, the forced swallowing of square metres of advertising and corporate messages from those that can afford it.

Truly, the realisation that I do not have to feel guilty about not purchasing the Sydney Morning Herald each week end is liberating.

What broke the habit was the Gillard misogynist speech.

It was a fascinating speech that addressed an issue that personally resonated within so many people.  It was grand theatre that meant something.

They don't  make papers like this any more (hooray).  Benjamin Franklin 1750

But many mainstream media commentators, the icons pictured on newspaper columns, could only view it through a narrow prism.

What did it mean to the machinations of Parliament over the next 24 hours?  And they even got that wrong.

They said it was a miscalculated rant designed to preserve the political skin of Peter Slipper.  Most everyone else said it was a speech of importance that would persevere, much long than the career or memory of Peter Slipper.

The lack of touch and perception by some newspaper columnists was exposed by the furious movement of opinion and comment over the web.

Especially on social media sites, countless people explained how the speech touched on what they experienced in their lives, how it electrified them.   It was plain the paper giants had got it wrong.

To me, the columnist line that the Gillard speech was a “misguided rant” looks like it was a line fed or created by professional political media advisers.

That makes sense because I know journalists are outnumbered and harassed by media advisers, whom have more time and resources at their command than the harried journalist.

If so, it is an indication that some newspaper commentators are embedded in the castle up on the hill with those that govern.  They look down upon us through the arrow slits in the towers.

The misogynist speech revealed to me I could get the news I wanted from linked pages, not inked pages.  So why should I persist in buying newspapers?

The forsaking of the newspaper gospel was slightly shocking to myself.  I used to consider the great columnists such as Alan Ramsey and Michelle Grattan as infallible and all-knowing giants.

Nowadays I go online and search for pieces by Daniel Hurst and Steve Wardill, both of whom I feel know the issues on the grounds outside the castle on the hill. And anything by Daryl Passmore and Kelmeny Fraser gets my attention.

For the others who have also abandoned the sacraments of the newspaper, we have found it is surprisingly not such as drastic change.

We had not fully realised we had already virtually stopped reading them anyhow.  Most of us are already getting our news from websites, or links on social media sites. 

However, I still get ink on my fingertips. I read my local newspaper: it arrives free on my doorstep.  I like to see if anyone I know is in it, and who is writing letters to the editor.

This kind of intimate newspaper experience probably reflects the desires and needs of the original newspaper readers two hundred years ago.

Do we need to despair that so many like me are perhaps condemning the daily newspaper to death?  Are we contributing to the demise of reporting?

Simply, no. Some broadsheets and tabloids may be on their way to extinction, but journalism is alive and thriving.

After all, the human need for news and gossip, timely and fresh, is as strong as ever.  The internet means reporters and journalists can fill that human craving in an instant.

For the rest of those who have stopped reading newspapers in 2012, even if they do not admit it to themselves, we will continue to pursue the news and a good read.

We have just forsaken the crinkly pages of newsprint to find the truth and facts that reflect the world we know.  

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