Our HR guy tells the straying university students that have a field trip to our office that the future of newspapers could possibly include aromas and 3D. Actually, the latter part already came into fruition with one of our wrap ads, where 3D glasses also were included with the paper for readers to see a particular image. This wasn't a gimmick to bring their attention back to the podium, but a genuine sense of hope, with perhaps a dash of fantasy, that something of the sort would materialise one day. It sounds like a Roald Dahl daydream, but I myself couldn't help but to imagine along how wondrous it would be if I could actually inhale the aroma of the reviewed dishes while reading Friday's food reviews.
You've probably read in countless articles in our special publication today that discuss the great print-digital debate -- the dust has still yet to completely set on this sunset industry. The trend suggests that the physical newspaper is on the highway to extinction, thanks to the issues of economy and ecology. As someone who works in print and thanks to the occasion of today being our paper's 70th anniversary, it seemed like a fitting time for me to confess how I am actually vouching for the losing side, even if it's going to read like nostalgia for the old order.
Ten years from now, we may become a paperless and digital society that completely revolves around the screen. I shudder at the thought, for what a shame it would be, should the newspaper eventually completely vanish from the face of the earth. While it attempts to explain the way of life on its own pages, it is in fact, a way of life itself. And I don't just mean that sidewalk fried bananas will no longer have newspaper wrappings. (On a side note, the HR guy tells the uni kids to pick fried banana stalls that use Bangkok Post newspaper as a baggie, because we use soy ink for printing, which is made from soybeans as opposed to petroleum-based inks.)
For some, the newspaper is part of a morning ritual, slowly absorbed with one's breakfast. The act of reading words in print requires commitment: you must sit still, be quiet and devote enough concentration in order to process the facts and opinions within the writing. It is not fleeting like reading words on a tablet, which is what some may do to merely kill time while quickly jumping through different tabs. It is without pop-up ads, multimedia videos and other headlines that flash and vie for your attention. The newspaper's slow-burning nature prompts and allows you more time to think; what a pearl that is in today's world of instantaneous online updates -- one that also bought along with it shorter attention spans, a maddening impatience and inability to exercise our thinking caps.
When there's an actual physical newspaper staring back at you, it's not something you can avoid. The online websites do offer an abundance of information at our finger tips, but that's just the thing: it only goes as far as what we click. Although everyone should, some people just don't actively seek news. It may be Farmville or Facebook that starts their day, but when a literal piece of paper that you can hold is lying around for skimming, it happens simply because it is available. As newspapers are a package of all news genres, it is an everything platter that moves you outside your zone of personal affairs. Reading opinion pages, at the very least, will help you form your own opinions, if not deepen your outlook on views different from your own.
Kopi shops used to be destinations where people discussed politics, world affairs and various headlines after reading the morning papers. It's grim that that sort of interaction is fading away -- especially when it is one that encourages debate and discussion. If newspapers do disappear, they wouldn't be lying around in cafes for the next person to peruse.
I'm genuinely worried about the cleaning ladies and motorcycle guys too. It makes me happy when I walk past them with their nose buried in a paper while on break or waiting for customers. It barely costs a thing to be informed and widening one's knowledge is never a bad thing. Smartphones may be much more affordable than before, but a number of people still don't have one, nor can afford one. For some people, newspapers are still a highly essential part of their lives.
I'm probably too sentimental because I'm also worried about all those astounding noodle shops of the future that will have nothing to frame on their walls because food reviews and feature stories have all shrivelled into online realms. Granted, a noodle vendor missing out on their hallmark achievement is hardly an apocalypse, but there is no charm and nothing memorable about printing a screen. Now, if we happened to be able to put out a noodle review with the actual scent of the soup, perhaps it may sell so well we'll be celebrating another 70 years and beyond.
Parisa Pichitmarn is a feature writer for the Life section of the Bangkok Post.