Mourning Paper

Health Information Technology? Tough questions? First of all, I'm not a journalist and my boss would be less than thrilled to know that I was using company time to direct advanceweb.com from my little arm chair here. Second of all, if all you are focusing in on is the "Health Information Technology Industry" then I can't imagine diversity in the demographic of your readers. I imagine it's quite a small group you are focusing in on ...and the ones that do "tune in" for information, aren't staying around for the gripping, fascinating, and/or entertaining world of Health Information Technology ...or maybe they are. I don't know.

If however, you are broadening your scope to include the Health Industry as a whole, a subject which perks up the ears of almost everyone nowadays; there are plenty of questions to be asked. Why (for instance) don't they just pass healthcare reform? They have the votes to do so. They don't need Republican support. The fact that they aren't, should be clue number one that this is a bad plan.

But again, I'm not clear on advanceweb.com's audience and focus, so I could be way off base. If however, there is some sort of wondering as to why print news is about to become extinct, know that most print media is totally biased with blatant favoritism towards their liberal ideals. The new digital medium is fast and easy and those who like to think every word spoken from Barack Obama is some sort of golden nugget of information can go there. And the ones that know better, have a place to go now too.

In your view, what are some of the "tough questions" that you'd like to see answered by leaders in the field of health information technology?

"I have to admit I still like the paper -- it gives me an excuse to rest my eyes from looking at a computer screen all day, but the online sure helps finding things again later, a big plus."

...alright.

"Sometimes I like to hold paper in my hands to share [an article] with my boss."

...Yep. Sometimes I like to hang interesting articles on my fridge at home. Using your printer to print out one article is little more "carbon unit" friendly than an entire paper with a garbage can's worth of advertisements in the middle. …we'll get to that in a minute.

"Humans have five senses; giving up paper means touch is gone."

...Really? I can't believe someone wrote this. Did Dell finally release their mind control computer screens? When can we donate our keyboards and mice to schools in need?

"I think you’re taking a very smart approach to piloting this while getting lots of feedback. The carbon units will be grateful."

No one cares about carbon units or carbon credits or any of that crap. Or at least no one should. Issuing carbon credits is viable in Al Gore's dream world, a world he seems to be bringing to life, amazingly. …and it's making him a ton of money, by the way. He and the rest of Hollywood love to come to our towns and tell us what to do. They have a nice idea and I wholeheartedly believe we should take serious action to start cleaning up our home and our oceans ...but then they turn around and fly off to the next town in their private jets ...then justify it all by claiming their speech to so many dozen people is worth so many carbon credits ...what? Wait ...wha? I'm sorry, for a second I thought I was on the wrong planet. And don't think it doesn't rub off. I can't tell you how many VW bugs decorated with peace signs and mother earth stickers; have drivers behind the wheel who think their cigarette butts are biodegradable. I digress.

The point of Mr. McGraw's article was his melancholy about the demise of print news. And part of my point back was, the reason print news is dying is because the "journalists" have largely given up reporting entire stories and focused on protecting ideas, politicians, etc. They have decided to pick a horse in these proverbial races.  Some have gone as far as to sacrifice their own careers, knowingly report lies, hoping to destroy the credibility of a sitting president. The funny part is journalists aren't supposed to be in the race to begin with! Newspapers aren't supposed to endorse politicians or ideas! They are supposed to report truth, fairly. But they aren't, so readers and viewers are going elsewhere. This wasn't a surprise. The Internet is convenient and we aren't locked in with a newspaper CEO's agenda. For that reason alone print news HAS to fail.

While Mr. McGraw spends his time writing his article and we spend our time reading over it, a year's subscription worth of tough questions is begging to be asked of our current leadership. The journalist who stands up and shouts these questions loud enough to be heard over the deafening homage that most of the media is paying to their star will push product for whatever medium they are attached to. Ask the questions, put our leadership on the spot, make them squirm, make them own up to the lies and hypocrisy ...or maybe even extinguish the fears many have about such things as our leadership and the direction they are steering America ... but do it fairly, legitimately, take yourselves out of the race and people will buy your papers, log on to your websites and print out your articles and put them on their fridge.

ADVANCE will continue to publish a mixture of print and Web content.

Consider these comments from readers after we published our digital-only issue in July 2009:

"I have to admit I still like the paper -- it gives me an excuse to rest my eyes from looking at a computer screen all day, but the online sure helps finding things again later, a big plus."

"Sometimes I like to hold paper in my hands to share [an article] with my boss."

"Humans have five senses; giving up paper means touch is gone. "

"I think you’re taking a very smart approach to piloting this while getting lots of feedback. The carbon units will be grateful."

Perhaps the reason for the demise in print newspaper is the near across the board, blatant, favoritism for anything liberal and/or left wing. The idea that print journalism clings more tightly to "real" journalism is an idea that is laughable at best.

This current administration is jam-packed with scandal, hypocrisy, lies and corruption. Notwithstanding the wackos appointed to posts intended to watch over our school children or "green" initiatives. There are pages and pages of interesting questions to be asking these people and the people who put them in power ...but no one will.

So your print paper will die. And the network, leftwing leaning, TV will follow suit …probably followed by one-sided right wing "journalism", if every news paper later decides THAT'S where the money is. No one cares ...except for sentimental journalists, I suppose. The masses have been crying out for reporting that is just that, reporting. The people wanted facts and we got your opinions, half truths, and out and out lies.

So does the format matter? Of course it does. So then, will people stop reading your web pages and blogs if they see through your blatant bias and political favoritism? You betcha. And they'll go somewhere else. 36 years from now some other journalist will be writing the same thing, wondering where the Internet went to. Again, no one cares.

So while it's somewhat sad to some folks that print news is on its way out with no way to survive, no one can say they didn't see it coming. The new digital medium is here and it's sexy and easy ...just like the newspaper was 100 years ago. But if journalists continue to fail, if they continue to try to force us to think like they want, if they continue to turn a blind eye to their team, if they continue to torment and defile the side they disagree with, if they continue to withhold facts so the readers may make up their own minds, regardless of the writer's polluted opinion, the readers will go somewhere else. That, I can promise.