Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Has the Internet killed the newspaper? It has helped, but the microprocessor is more important.

What else contributed to the death of the newspaper. How about the good old microprocessor? Tremendous power in a small, inexpensive package.

Twenty-five years ago, I could read the news online via CompuServe. At the time I rented a room in a lady’s home. She rented five bedrooms (a long story). I suggested that she get a computer and we all read the news online.

“Sure, couldn’t you see us all huddled around a big computer to read the newspaper?”

She was right. It wouldn’t work.

Fast-forward to today. My brother, his wife, and two college-student kids take my mother on a vacation to Branson, Missouri. I was talking to her on the phone and wanted to email her some information. Did my brother or sister-in-law bring a computer?

“Sure, they all did. There are four computers sitting on the table.”

That was it. Four people, four portable computers, WiFi, who needs a newspaper? How in the world can a middle-class family from a small town in Mississippi afford four portable computers? The microprocessor.

Yes, the Internet is killing the newspaper, but the Internet doesn’t matter if a computer for almost every adult isn’t affordable. It is. The newspaper is toast.