This morning, just before I left, I heard on ABC News Breakfast that a group of nine Australians, having gone missing after the Sumatran tsunami, were safe and sound after all.
Later in the day, I picked up The Australian.
The front page not only indicated that they were still missing, it nebulously noted that their group was made up of ‘up to 10 Australian surfers’. (Sallie Don, ‘10 Aussie surfers missing after tsunami’, The Australian, 27 October 2010, 1.)
The paper can’t be blamed for this — it had gone to print many hours earlier. And it’s not the first time that I’ve observed this sort of thing. But it really drove home for me exactly why newspapers are on the way out, and online content delivery is the new standard. The iPad’s appearance on the scene, generating so much comment on the issue, added a mere twig to the already amply fuelled fire.
Will anyone be sad about the disappearance of news in print? I certainly won’t miss trying to read the unwieldy broadsheet in question on a crowded train.
