Ian Carter, editor of the Croydon Advertiser , captures the dilemma, and the irony, of journalists caught between two methods of transmission. First off, he laments the fact that stories keep breaking after his weekly off-stone deadline.
He writes: "I've noticed a trend over the past few weeks - whenever anything happens in Croydon, it happens late on a Thursday afternoon. It's a really annoying trend at that - the timing means it misses the next day's Advertiser and we have to wait a week to put it in the paper."
He goes on to point to the advantages offered by his paper's online service. "Yes, we can and do put the story and pictures up on the website." But then comes regret: "It's never quite the same as seeing it in print."
And where is he writing all this? On his weblog, of course. So his celebration of the flexibility offered by screen-based journalism, which he demonstrates by blogging himself, is muted by his continuing love for printers' ink. I wonder how many people agree with him. A fair few, I should think, because making the transformation from old to new, from ancient to modern, is always difficult, is it not?
