Thursday, April 15, 2021

Hard Copy

 


It has been a little over 3 months since a standard component of my life has returned after a 4-year hiatus. Getting a newspaper in print is outdated and unnecessary. The inquisitive news-seeker has more than enough options online, saving a few trees along the way. The reason I am drawn to holding my paper in my hands, beyond the nostalgia, is the offline nature of it. A team of editors who I trust, Indian Express in this case, serve me the news they thought was important 12 hours ago. Yes, there is curation and there is filtering here too, yet it is the permanency of their choices that makes it seem more reliable to me. No one can get on a server to tweak the words or make the link disappear altogether. There is no chorus of clashing voices in the comments section assigning the news their chosen flavour of interpretation. Just facts and me. The editorial opinions too seem to be personally delivered and not having a space to immediately react to them allows me to process them that much more slowly. Slowness in an age of near instantaneous Internet may be a botheration to most but to me, it’s a luxury I scarcely believe I deserve.

[https://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2021/04/hard-copy.html]