Kindersley currently has three regular general print publications available.
The Kinderlsey Clarion is mostly a local “news”-paper – since 1910. The Weekly Bean is known for its trivia and story base. Kindersley Social contains local news and local contributors.
The consensus in the larger media world is that print newspapers are dying. If this signals a loss of democracy, a lessening of the right for the public to “know”, and a shrinking of shared community – then we are in trouble.
1440 was the beginning of the “print age”. The emphasis was on the ability to mass produce written words on paper. Now everyone could have a book in their hand, or a newspaper at the coffee stand.
I’m sure you have heard that we are now in “the digital age.” This is the time in which our communication of information in shared community is done through electronic means. For those of us old enough to have seen the beginning of the digital age, we know digit(al) stand for the digits 0 and 1. That’s all computers are about! The rest is creative programming.
The digital age originally provided a glitch for news-providers. Sensible owners of news outlets saw a lack of income in the early days. Gradually the ideal of an open information system was replaced by a commercially regulated system.
A current day news-provider begins with a presence on the internet. A print option is considered if there is a viable way to produce copies economically. But print is not required.
The end user can decide on whether they wish to make a print copy of current news. A digital copy is available to them, from which a number of options for maintaining that original copy can be had – storage in the “cloud”, printing on paper, filing on hard drives, etc.
News has not stopped being published.
News has moved into a new age of transmission.
The disappearance of print news will not explode democracy, lessen public knowledge or shrink shared community. Failing to understand and to act on this new transition into digital information could!
BTW – For those of us who don’t mind a print copy of a newspaper – consider becoming bilingual. Tell people you speak both “Tangible” and “Ephemeral”. That ought to be a good conversation opener!
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