Thursday, February 10, 2011
Internet v Local Papers
Given that nearly everyone these days, especially in places like Singapore and Bangkok, is either on line or not far from being on line is it really necessary for papers to just regurgitate news stories, ok, football stories, from England or Spain?
For example yesterday it was reported in England that West Ham were favorites to win the right to use the Olympic Stadium in London after 2012. OK, putting aside the relatively small number of WHam fans in Singapore was it really necessary to run it in a paper 24 hours later? WHam fans would know it already, football fans would have found out from surfing BBC or Guardian or whatever. So why bother?
Why fill column inches with someone else's crap? Has anyone proved scientifically that readers wanna read 48 hour old news from 7,000 miles away that they have already long known about and already lost interest in?
I used to live in Australia. I would find out Saturday's results on Monday in the local papers. I could buy the local football weekly to keep up with news from home, and you will never understand what reading those pages meant to a home sick Gooner meant, and once I'd moved to Cairns even that arrived a week after the event.
But then, beyond pricey phone calls, there were no alternatives.
Today, there are options. Perhaps it's time papers started getting with the 21st century and stopped just repeating other people's news but getting off their butts and finding their own.
For example yesterday it was reported in England that West Ham were favorites to win the right to use the Olympic Stadium in London after 2012. OK, putting aside the relatively small number of WHam fans in Singapore was it really necessary to run it in a paper 24 hours later? WHam fans would know it already, football fans would have found out from surfing BBC or Guardian or whatever. So why bother?
Why fill column inches with someone else's crap? Has anyone proved scientifically that readers wanna read 48 hour old news from 7,000 miles away that they have already long known about and already lost interest in?
I used to live in Australia. I would find out Saturday's results on Monday in the local papers. I could buy the local football weekly to keep up with news from home, and you will never understand what reading those pages meant to a home sick Gooner meant, and once I'd moved to Cairns even that arrived a week after the event.
But then, beyond pricey phone calls, there were no alternatives.
Today, there are options. Perhaps it's time papers started getting with the 21st century and stopped just repeating other people's news but getting off their butts and finding their own.
# posted by Me @ 1:08 PM 
