"Out with the old, in with the new?"

For this blog assignment, I read the San Jose Mercury News' Monday, September 25, 2006 issue. First, I read the actual newspaper, then proceeded to read it online. With both the newspaper and San Jose Mercury News online, I believe there are pros and cons. Personally, for me, it does not matter whether I read it on a newspaper or online because I am still getting the same news. Although, you get the exact content, some may believe, like myself that the newspaper holds a sentimental value. I mean, who does not love reading the Sunday newspaper along with some delicious breakfast and a good ol' cup of Starbucks in hand? How about reading those corky Sunday comics? Those are definitely my personal favorite. In any case, the newspaper and the online site has differences and also some similarities. Lets start off with differences.

Differences

In Monday's issue, the newspaper was separated with six categories: Front page, (which usually consists of the top news stories) the Valley, (news going on in the Bay Area) Arts and Entertainment, Sports, Tech Mondays, and Classification. The San Jose Mercury News website’s home page did not contend a front page; rather it had updated news. This brings me up to another difference; the online site has news updated about every hour, where as Monday’s paper had news that occurred before it was printed. What about convenience? You can carry around a newspaper wherever and whenever. Heck, you can even take it with you all the way to the North Pole! For the website's case whenever you want like an actual newspaper, but the only problem is you’ll have to you sit down to a computer and go online. If you have a newspaper, you can read any article you’d like on it, but not for the website. For some articles, you must subscribe and pay a fee. Since technology is up to date, the website offers variety. For those tech junkies, there are pod casts, videos, audio play, and blogs. Also there are a few helpful sections such as there is a search engine for events around the Bay Area, site services, (i.e. Yellow pages) and even a dating section! (Oh lala!) Obviously, the newspaper does not offer any of this simply because its just paper. Surprisingly, with all these differences, they are also similarities.

Similarities

Articles in Monday’s newspaper were exactly the same as the ones online. Although advertisements were placed in a different formant, both the newspapers and the website had plenty of them. Lastly, the website had news, sports and entertainment sections like the newspaper.

Even though the differences outweigh the similarities, the most important similarity is the articles are exactly the same. As long as the content of the stories are the exact, does it really matter whether or not if it’s in paper form or on a computer screen?