In an age when the obituary of the newspaper has been written many times over - often 140 characters at a time - I still find time to read a physical copy of a newspaper each day.
Part of what I love about the newspaper, in it's traditional form, is the front page.
Online, I'm able to filter so much information that I'll often only click on the stories I'm into. Sure, there's a link to something about the war, but do I really want to read another story on Afghanistan? Especially when there's an feature article on some new social trend that will have died the moment the story went to print.
But when an editor puts a story like Afghanistan on page one, above the fold, he or she is telling you it's important. There's a hundred articles in our paper, but this is the one you ought to read.
It also reminds me of some of the movies I used to watch growing up. Whenever there was big event, you'd have the scene where a truck drives by and throws a stack of newspaper onto the ground, whatever headline centre of shot. What are they going to do now? Show an iPad instead?
The front page still has a huge symbolic value, and done well, makes a statement or sums up the mood of its readers.
And it is for these reason (and with a firm understanding of irony) that one of my new favourite sites is the Front Page blog. Each day the website shows the front page of all the major U.S newspapers. From the Boston Globe to the L.A Times and USA Today, it's got it there.
So if the death of the newspaper is indeed imminent, I'll be front row, in black, mourning at it's funeral.
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