Long, long ago (well, several decades before I got into this game, anyway!) The Cyprus Mail was set by hand. Reporters rushed to the scene, phoned in their copy, editors took out their red pencils, and the pages were set by hand in our inky back room. And then, seemingly overnight, the internet sprang up – an entirely new medium! In the beginning, it was clunky – its potential poorly-understood and its adherents few and far between. But somebody, somewhere realised it could compete with the speed of broadcast journalism and internet news was born…
As early as 1974, the online publication News Report was issued by the University of Illinois; in the eighties, the Brazilian newspaper Jornaldodia appeared on the state owned Embratel network. In 1995, Britain’s Weekend City Press Review provided an online weekly news summary and, by the turn of the century, hundreds of newspapers around the world were publishing online versions. Here in Cyprus, The Cyprus Mail jumped on the bandwagon in the late nineties: the first newspaper on the island to set up a dedicated website in addition to its print edition…
Of course the advent of the digital age had already seen the office transition from hand-set type to online wonder: reporters saving their text to a server and editors making changes and laying out in the blink of an eye. Finished pages are proofed (the one step in the process that still requires hard copy), mistakes are amended by the typesetters, and the final creation is digitally transmitted to our printing press overnight, for distribution in the wee hours of the morning.
Nowadays, almost every newspaper and magazine has a digital edition. Some – including The Independent – are purely online. Huffpost was never in print. And papers such as The Times of London have online subscribers numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Here at The Cyprus Mail, our site reaches almost 20,000 people in nearly every country in the world, with a total monthly readership of over 1.4 million. But there are still those who love the crackle, the rustle and the unadulterated leisure of a crisply-inked paper over breakfast. And though circulation figures are declining around the world, here in Cyprus print is Definitely Not Dead. Even the millennials enjoy a good print read…
While Antony – our youngest intern – ascribes to the “retro rustle of real paper” view, and thirty-something diplomat Costa adores “holding a fresh paper: that old school feel and smell are irreplaceable!”, the majority of younger print aficionados cite the ease of reading from the page. “I may be a millennial, but I’ve never really got the hang of screen reading!” laughs Anna. “Whether it’s news, opinion or novels, actual print is much easier on the eye than a flickering screen. Plus, if you’re reading online, it’s often difficult to navigate back to something you want to re-read; with print, you remember it was about half-way through the paper on the left-hand page and bingo – you’ve found it!”
“It’s certainly far easier to read print,” agrees media student Stephen. “If you’re locked into online news, you can find yourself clicking away, seeking updates and information, cross-referencing and looking for varying opinions – it can be overwhelming. But open up an old-fashioned paper and you’ve got that basic, 24-hour coverage of both local and global events; it’s somehow more satisfying, more filling. It’s definitely a retro thing.”
While I’ve yet to meet a teenager who turns to print rather than, say, Facebook for their news hit, the millenials’ view was surprising. I’m the tail end of Generation X myself, and like others of my ilk I’m crazy about the internet because – and this is key – I didn’t grow up with it. Being able to access the very latest news online will never grow old for my generation. But fellow X’er Eleni and I both admit to fondness for print – “there’s a feeling of comfort and contentment to hold and read” – that just isn’t present in digital news. “No matter how much I read on the internet, I’m always left thinking I’ve missed something, that my old-school upbringing is making me overlook the obvious; I guess it’s a sort of digital insecurity – you kind of feel kids these days are picking up on things faster and in more depth,” Eleni continues, “even though you know they’re probably only skimming the major news issues.”
So, millennials are going retro for print; Generation X are more comfortable with an actual page in their hands. But what about the Baby Boomers? Have they converted wholly to the digital age, or are they sticking with the medium of their youth?
“Print will never die,” states fifty-something director Tomas. “With a real newspaper, you’re not only getting the stuff you set out to read: turn the page and your eyes fall on something new. The internet can’t offer this: you’re on a news site because you’re following up on something you want to read about – it leads to self-perpetuating bubbles of information. Look at the Facebook algorithm for example: it’s filtering out subjects in which you’ve previously shown no interest and feeding you more of the same; it’s making the world more polarised and intolerant.”
This fairly strong opinion aside, I asked a few other local print-loving Baby Boomers just what keeps their eyes on the page. And while the phrase “lifetime habit” was a fairly common response, there were a fair few reasons I hadn’t foreseen!
“Smartphones are too small to read text on, and I just can’t be bothered to fiddle about switching my computer on and off just for the football results,” said one Paphos retiree, who takes the print edition every day. An ex-teacher suggested the blanket coverage of depressing incidents kept her away from digital news; her husband advocated the practicality of real paper (“You can’t use a laptop to line the litterbox or start a fire, can you?!”) while a third seventy-something asserted that “a newspaper doesn’t cost 300 euros when you drop it!” And almost all the over-sixties who subscribe to The Cyprus Mail on a daily basis agreed on one thing: you just can’t do crosswords online!
While print circulation is undoubtedly falling around the world (the Pew Research Centre states that roughly half of those surveyed still read print only, but this number is decreasing year on year), there will always, it seems, be a demand for paper news. Especially in Cyprus, where a proper paper with your sketo is a way of life! So, whether it’s millennials who love the retro feel, middle-aged professionals who cite familiarity or retirees with a passion for puzzles, print is Here To Stay. For now, anyway. But let me get back to you in twenty years – if I still have a job!
For more information on subscribing to the print edition of The Cyprus Mail call 22 878500 or 22 818585
