IT HAS amused me to read, in journalism blogs and online forums for journalists, the laments of the previous generation of journalists over the changes to media platforms in New Zealand, and indeed all over the world. Part of it is the frustration - and the pettiness - of former professionals no longer involved in media. There is also the difficulty in appreciating certain inevitabilities of the modern age - perhaps another common factor in the previous generation of ex-journos.
In the nineties, the marvellous invention called the internet evolved to the point where information could be shared across the World Wide Web. "Information" was no longer the domain of newsprint and libraries, as the public began a fascinated love affair, and addiction, to the information paradise that is the digital world. Advertisers realised they could sell online, rather than in printed media. A new balance came about, as everyone adjusted, and part of that balance was that newspapers, which are not state-funded, became smaller.
However, regional newspapers such as this one hold their own because subscribers like them - which means our advertisers like them - but also because they provide information at a local level not found in larger metropolitan papers.
There is also a basic desire and familiarity in holding a newspaper.
The business model is different, the economies of scale are different. But information is information, and journalism will always be there.
