It has been a long time since I've had a newspaper delivered.
And now that I have my finger stuffed in the electrical socket of real-time digital news delivery 24 hours a day, a recent experience of having one unexpectedly delivered was startling.
A couple of days ago, in Los Angeles, I opened the door to my hotel room in the morning to find a newspaper.
The main headline delivered information that had been "news" to me about 24 hours earlier. I had read about the information all day long, and, prior to opening my hotel room door that morning, I had already read a bunch of what used to be called "second-day" and "third-day" stories about it as well (the more contemplative analysis that follows once everyone has digested the news).
As a result, the impact was similar to the impact of seeing a front page of a historical event--an artifact, from back when such front pages actually delivered news.
I'm not against getting free stuff, so I probably would have picked the newspaper up and taken it to breakfast if I hadn't been in a hurry.
Alas, I was in a hurry.
So I stepped over it, refreshed the news on my phone, and headed for the elevators.
Somewhere in there, I also (briefly) contemplated the immense amount of work and money that had gone into producing and delivering that newspaper to me. The news-gathering, the writing, the editing, the laying-out, the printing, the truck delivery, the hotel employee who had to push carts around the hotel for hours in the dead of night... And that doesn't even include the cost of growing, cutting, and pulping trees, making paper and ink, and burning coal and oil for power and electricity to run those gigantic machines.
I at least hope that no advertisers paid the newspaper to reach me!
Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.
Join the conversation about this story »
