"The more things change, the more they stay the same..."

At the last newspaper I used to work at, my old boss used to say, "If B&O had known they were in the transportation business instead of the railroad business, they would still BE in business." This was at the time he was getting the small town paper on-line as one of the fore-runners of seeing the direction communications are going in. Yes, it seems everything is changing... When I was younger, people that worked at Southwestern Bell thought their jobs were secure for life, but cell phones changed all of that. Paper and business form companies have always been a staple, but with so much done electronically, that has downsized in a huge way. And the three major television networks, ABC, CBS & NBC, had a huge lock on news transmission until cable networks came on the scene. And I just read today that Eastman Kodak is about to file for bankruptcy because camera sales are so low since everyone is using their cell phone to snap photos. (Ironically, it is Google and Apple that are looking to buy them.) And it also seems to me that Yahoo and Google have the new 'lock' on news transmission. Take, for instance, when my 9th grader was supposed to write an essay in November on Hugo Chavez. Like 99% of others her age, she was 'googling' him yet only finding all positive about him. I was shocked. Then, as we started looking at other dictators, we found the same to be true. Google (and Apple) are full of young liberals who can (and are) now dictating the kind of news that's being disseminated. Ask most 20 or 30-somethings how they get their news, and most of them will say on their iPhone or iPad. One of my co-workers last year in her 20's said to me (with a straight face) that she gets most of her hard news from the Jon Stewart Show. Ugh - heaven help us...

What concerns me most about the fall of newspapers is that we have been the primary "news gather-ers." Even the Fox Network in their first years, were relying on other sources, and usually newspaper sources like the AP (Associated Press.) Yes, most of them are liberal, but used to be objective. Obviously no longer. I've found that I have to go to overseas sources to get the most objective news about the United States. So no more will there be newspaper kings like William Randolph Hearst with his castle, but we now have Bill Gates and internet tycoons who have the largest houses in the U.S.

(sigh) I guess having been in the newspaper business for my entire adult career, I'm trying to sound the alarm that we have to be in the COMMUNICATIONS business and not the newspaper business. I have a Facebook account, a blog, a Twitter account and try to stay up with all the latest apps with 3 children to keep me current. It is social media that is taking the world by storm and will never return to how it has been most of my life. Sometimes it's un-nerving but it's always exciting. The whole world is turning upside down, and the U.S. is still in the driver's seat on most of this technology. That much is really positive. It's just that it changes so rapidly, it's hard (and expensive) to keep up with it all. I get a new iPhone every 2 years with each contract.

But it's constantly changing and requires so much time to learn it all. I'm wondering if we will plateau with all of the knowledge? I'm wondering with the death of Steve Jobs, if electronics will drastically slow down? Time will tell, and in the mean time?

Guess I'll go check Facebook...