Are digital-only newspapers possible?

Feb 10, 2008

I just came across a news that a newspaper has given up its print publication and now it is totally available in the digital format. I’m not sure if it is accessible on every device that can log on to the Internet but it can be surely read on your computer or laptop.

I get a paper newspaper, in fact we get two newspapers, one in English and one in Hindi. Would both my wife and I find it OK if our newspapers only came with digital versions and there was no newspaper delivery person throwing them at our door every morning? I think in our individual case we will be OK with that because we spend a considerable amount of time in front of the computer screens. We can still access all major newspapers on the Internet and sometimes we do access them whenever we are doing some research or if we want to read more about an interesting news. Although we can access possibly every newspaper on the Internet reading the paper newspaper in the morning just after or before the breakfast in our household is a ritualistic practice that we have been following since the times we started reading newspapers during our teen years. We find it difficult to give up this ritual and maybe this is a reason if somehow we cannot read our newspapers in the morning we skip reading them even when we can access them on the Internet. Of course a big reason is that if the morning is gone we are both busy in our respective works and hence have no time to catch up with the news.

In case a time comes when my favorite newspaper is only available through the Internet I won’t mind that and in fact I prefer that. My newspaper is quite thin: I think it just has 20 odd pages. There are some newspapers that have 30 to 40 pages but in India we don’t get newspapers as bulky as in the West. Reading the newspaper on the Internet will save so much paper. The paper industry cuts millions of trees with alarming frequency.

But with current penetration of technology I don’t think Internet-only newspapers are possible; at least not in the countries that have less than 1% Internet penetration. As I told above my wife gets a Hindi newspaper and they often have it printed on the first page that it is the most widely circulated newspaper in the world. Of course this is due to the population but even when so many people subscribe to the newspaper this Hindi newspaper hardly has an online edition because more than 95% of its readers have no access to a computer leave alone the Internet.