Death of the Newspaper?

Is it really dying? The newspaper and print in general I mean.

Because if it is so, I’m sure as hell not felling it. When I want to cross-reference and fact check on certain stories, I still turn to newspapers. You say online is the way to go? I beg to differ. There’s only so much the online community can do.

For example, there’s an article wherein the title feels so real. The content in itself sounds real and fairly happens to your immediate surrounding. You share it immediately upon reading the entirety of it’s first paragraph. Alone. It’s a knee-jerk reaction of course, but let’s admit, once or twice in our social media lives, we have done this. And guess what, to your shame, once you read the article in its ENTIRETY, from top to bottom, there’s a disclaimer saying:

This is a satiric article posted by blah blah blah. For the purpose of making you think for yourself, blah blah blah.

Your credibility instantly crumbles down, especially if you’ve thrown invectives at say, the catholic church for that matter. In an instant, the knee-jerk reaction of wanting to share, wanting to illuminate others, turns out to be a dud, and you’re the biggest clown there is. Haters would be feasting on you if you’ve garnered enough attention to warrant a hater.

But the bottom line is:

You effed up by believing the online source and resorted to a knee-jerk reaction.

I’ve been there, done that, but thank goodness it got cleaned up just fine. I’ve learned from it. That before reacting to a certain article online, I always have to double check. Not with other online materials, but with the newspaper.

Why do I insist?

Think, what gets written in the paper? Do you utmostly believe that the big three will run stories that are fake, satiric and just want to boggle your mind? Of course not. There may be a spring of errata here and there, but serious papers don’t run fictionaliled stuff. They mean real, serious business people and are not clowning around like the next door “blogger” (I think I’m one of them) who pretty much sounds off on everything (well in my defense, there’s politics in sports).

The newspaper won’t die. Every Juan wants a tangible, readable, and very real material that has news written all over it. It will die only in somebody else’s dreams. When you want the real, hard, serious stuff, the newspapers have it (sans the Entertainment section, I mean rumor-mongering and all). Especially if it’s one of the three major publications in the country. They won’t pussy-foot around with the information.

And I’m pretty sure they don’t have a disclaimer kicker at the end of their articles. They don’t have to. It’s real, hard facts. Why would you need a disclaimer?

Disclaimers are only for the gullible. It’s time we stop being gullible. Stick to the papers. They’ll be your saving grace.