The Pioneer: Hard Copy or Online?

By Beverly Maurice
September 27, 2009
Filed under Student Life & News

Where Has All the Paper Gone? (Sung to the tune of “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” by Pete Seeger). Or specifically, where has Catawba’s Pioneer newspaper gone?

Gone to computer, everyone. Ideally, this is a significant win-win situation. Just think how green we’ve gone, how many trees we are saving, and how about the ink (typically this is mineral oil based for newspapers because of its ability to speed dry, thus explaining why it gets all over our hands.)? Then too, there’s the gas we’re not using to get our writing to and from the printers. Sounding better by the minute, wouldn’t you agree? Next, there’s the money we’re saving; printing costs, the aforementioned gas, distribution expenses; saved, saved and saved. Finally, look how current and contemporary we are. Looking at the website, Newspaper Death Watch, we can see that we are in good company with a number of “U.S. metropolitan dailies” under the heading of W.I.P. which stands for Works in Progress. According to Newspaper Death Watch this means that like the Catawba Pioneer, these papers “have adopted hybrid online/print or online-only models.” Of course, those dailies that have disappeared altogether fall under the heading “R.I.P”.

Please don’t misunderstand me, I am all for going green (I even received $5.00 by being spotted with my green pig pin) and for saving money (I too am a poor college student). I like to think I’m pretty up with the times (I’m a pirate, a farmer, a sweets shop owner, etc. on Facebook), but I miss the hard copy Pioneer.

A number of people have expressed this very same sentiment. “Just Mayes” (a.k.a. Kendrick Mayes, or Dr. Mayes) is one young person who also feels this way. Mayes said,

“It was easier to distribute to family; not everyone may have a computer, and people are more likely to pick it up and read it if they see laying on a table in the cafeteria. If I’m in the newspaper it’s much easier to say to others, “’Have you seen me?’ But now I have to send them to a specific website”.

As old-fashioned and corny as this may sound, on a small college campus such as ours, we enjoyed watching for the next issue, enjoyed holding it (even the getting-ink-on-our-hands part), and enjoyed finding ourselves or our friends in the paper. I think a number of us would even grab a few extra copies to send home to mom and dad, etc. I know, just send the link to everyone (via Facebook, of course), but it’s just not the same.

We’ll miss you, hard copy of The Pioneer, but may you forever be with us in electronic form.