WORTHINGTON — In some ways, I imagine my newspaper career started at the age of 6.
Using a manual typewriter, I’d bang out something about the weather and, as I recall, some type of imaginary news story (I predicted “fake news”!) on an 8½-by-11 piece of paper. Breaking certain copyright law, I also borrowed the phrase “All the news that’s fit to print” from The New York Times. Luckily, no legal action was ever pursued.
A few years later, I got my first paper route, and delivered the Albany Times Union seven mornings each week. Oh, how I hated Sundays! The weight of the paper, the number of trips required on my bicycle from home, all the newsprint — but it was a great and ultimately valuable experience, during a time when it seemed almost everyone got a newspaper of some kind delivered to their home.
Times, obviously, have sure changed since then. What hasn’t changed, though, is people’s demand for news. It has just merely taken on a different form.
I can recall my initial journeys into the online world in the early ’90s, and being both amazed at both the content that quickly became available and how slow the delivery speeds were. Reading a news article online was certainly a form of convenience, but I much preferred having an actual newspaper in my hands. And, if an article was something from our local paper, it was abundantly easier to retrieve it from the other room instead of waiting for the dang thing to load at turtle-like speed on the computer.
ADVERTISEMENT
Nowadays, of course, all that information is delivered at virtually lightning speed. Not only that, but one doesn’t have to be in front of a bulky and cumbersome-to-carry computer to get whatever it is they’re looking for. Not only can it be found on portable tablets, but it’s there on — gasp — a phone. Maybe I was far too naive technologically, but I never saw that one coming.
The future for newspapers, which was already pretty evident to many before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, has certainly arrived now. Newspapers all over the world are reducing their print offerings, and The Globe is no exception. But from an electronic standpoint, newspapers are giving readers just as much, or more, than ever. This allows readers to maintain their knowledge of what’s going on around them, and gives us the valuable opportunity to continue to report what’s happening and maintain our important role as a community watchdog.
New technology, though, can be intimidating. I recall my grandfather being in his mid- to late 80s and learning — thanks to I imagine what was some remarkable patience from my dad — how to use email to remain in contact with family and friends. Sending an email is a much different process than reading an e-edition of a newspaper, of course, but in the end, it seems like it’s simply about familiarizing oneself with what had once been a foreign process.
I really encourage regular readers of The Globe to access a digital replica of the paper via our e-edition. Not only can you flip through pages of the paper in the manner of a printed product, but you can enjoy the opportunity to enlarge text size as well as print out crosswords or articles. You can also sign up, if you wish, for email newsletters on a variety of topics, and get breaking news alerts. You can access not merely The Globe, but all the news sites within the Forum Communications news network, using the same login credentials. Access to all this content is both unlimited and uninterrupted.
For our print subscribers, it’s a great time to activate your digital membership that comes with your print subscription. You can activate your membership either online at dglobe.com or by calling us at (507) 376-9711 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. And, if you’re not already a subscriber, check us out online or give us a call, too. We are eager to help people unaccustomed to navigating our website get both familiar and comfortable.
As editor of The Globe, I thank all of our readers for their continued support of the newspaper. The news may look a little different nowadays, but it’s as important as ever and we remain committed to bringing you the best community journalism we can.
