The forgotten newspaper

I came across this rather forlorn site in front of a downtown office building a few months ago. Yes, the concrete stones are indeed as cold as they look, and the newspapers had indeed been piling up for three days straight.

I still remember delivering the paper when I was a kid, long before the commercial Internet rewrote the rules of how news was gathered, sold, distributed and consumed. I still believe there's room in some niche-like manner for paper-based media, even if it's only a small slice of a much larger electronic distribution strategy.

But on this day, in this place, it was hard to ignore the elastic-bound papers, forgotten by someone who had probably subscribed months earlier and then never bothered to pick them up.

It made me a little sad for what we've lost. Because as convenient as it may be to read the paper on a tablet, we lose a visceral sense of connectedness in the process. It may be a more efficient means of delivery, but it's nowhere near as rich. And to whoever paid for these papers and never bothered reading them, wherever you are you're missing out on a time-honoured experience.

Your turn: Paper or electronic? Why?