The Internet and Media

 Do you remember the days when you were younger and you'd wake up to mom and/or dad sitting at the kitchen table having coffee swapping off different sections of the Sunday paper? That same Sunday morning in our house has now turned into seeing which parent got to the desktop and which one got to the laptop in order to read the daily news. To say that the Internet has revolutionized the media doesn't even begin to describe how reliant upon technology the world has become.

  Prior to the Internet you had to pay for a subscription to your local newspapers. Here in Boston most people subscribed to either the Boston Globe or the Boston Herald for their Sunday news and sales ads, very rarely subscribing to both. Now with the Internet, instead of choosing one, in a matter of minutes you can switch between articles printed by one or the other and all free of charge. This is not only convenient but you can now read your favorite writer's articles no matter what paper they work for. For instance, I like the Globe for straight news articles however I believe that the Herald's sports section is far superior. You can set up alerts through either paper to receive breaking news through your smartphone or email when news happens in your section of the state.

In addition to the news online, a lot of people used to subscribe to the Sunday edition of the newspaper specifically to view all local store's ads for weekly sales. Instead of having to subscribe to the paper to see the specials, most stores offer the specials on their websites and in most cases you can even view a scanned PDF copy of the exact insert that was put in the Sunday papers. A classmate referred to this specifically when talking about shopping the day after Thanksgiving, typically known as 'Black Friday'. It has been tradition in the past that people eat Thanksgiving dinner, take an early evening nap, and then wake up to participate in special midnight store openings in order to receive deep discounts on specific items. Before the Internet the only way to know what the specials would be would be to wait for the paper to come during Thanksgiving week. Now not only can you log onto a store's website days before, but most are now offering the same sales online as if you had actually gone to the store and wrestled through the hoards of people trying to get the same deals.

 The only downside to the media and the Internet that I really see is the fact that prior to online media, news outlets were only competing with each other for breaking news information. Now not only do our local stations in Boston compete with other ABC, CBS, and NBC affiliates throughout the country, but also many smaller news outlets, to be the first to report on a story. Often times this does lead to media outlets posting a headline only to end up retracting their report as erroneous. I have however found that most of the major outlets do a fairly decent job of confirming their reports before posting. Although the details usually end up getting edited as the story develops, the headline itself is usually spot on.