Best of Both Worlds?

One week during class, we discussed how digital media is slowly phasing out other, more tangible types of media. Newspaper sales, for example, are dropping in response to news on the internet, television, and radio, in addition to environmental concerns. And I’m not completely sure how I feel about this.

I’ve never been much of a newspaper reader, so I never understood why people would rather pay to get a piece of paper, when they could just watch TV or get the information on the internet. Also, when information is online, it is much easier to access a specific article. I can type in any topic, or any piece of information from an article, and I will get numerous possibilities. Which, if I may go off topic for a second, reminds me of the example in Everything is Miscellaneous about the historical picture archive. The pictures were alphabetically ordered, but they were extremely hard to access because they were difficult to categorize. Since one picture could

Image via Wikipedia

fit under many categories, if you wanted to find that picture of a soldier eating in a field, it would be difficult to find without knowing the exact category. Unless you want to spend ridiculous amounts of time sifting through card catalogs. But, on the internet, you do not need to know the exact category, just type in what you remember, and it will most likely come up. Like, with YouTube, I can type in lyrics to a completely random part of a song, and the song will pop up in a matter of seconds.

So, anyways, after having said all that, I couldn’t see why newspapers hadn’t been phased out sooner. That was, until I actually started reading one. A few weeks ago, for the first time, I actually started picking up a copy of the diamondback to read in my spare time. And, I have to admit, there really is something about having something tangible in your hands. It just feels more authentic.

Since, I personally enjoy the benefits of these two types of media, I would love to always have both of them. But, I’m not completely sure if this is a realistic expectation
What do you guys think? Is it possible for newspaper and digital news to continue to survive together in harmony, or will one completely overtake the other?