Notes from the Desk The future of The Campus

Author: Jack Lysohir

When I speak to alumni that attended Middlebury in the 1980s and 90s, they almost inevitably date themselves by mentioning their "room phones." Whether coordinating for a big party, asking someone out for a drink at Mister Ups, or even performing pranks of epic proportions, phones were an integral part of student life. Today students look to e-mail, instant messenger, and of course, the all-mighty cell phone (or smart phone, for a growing number of us) for their communication needs. Those generic beige touch-tone phones that sit atop each desk in every dorm room on campus do little more than harken us back to a simpler Middlebury - or for my roommate and me, sporadically offer a stark wake-up call from some earnest, robotic solicitor (How'd they get our number?).

The telephone wire wholly revolutionized the exchange of information - only the invention of the printing press nearly five centuries earlier had a larger impact on this exchange. Our generation, however, has witnessed a dramatic transformation in the way people communicate, in a dramatically short period of time. And now the Internet, which facilitates the exchange of information in a fast, comprehensive, and above all, easy way may finally put an end to Gutenberg's reign. Just as cell phone technology replaced landlines, Internet technology is fast replacing print media.

Will we at The Middlebury Campus, a traditional college newspaper, go the way of the room phone and drift into obscurity? Or will print journalism remain relevant? To me, The Campus holds its readers for two reasons: one, because of our civilization's habitual attachment to newspaper; and two, because of the quality (most of the time) of the articles. Not only is it better to spill your coffee on The New York Times than www.nytimes.com, it also just feels right leafing through a newspaper at breakfast. As for the second reason, it is the exception and not the rule when The Campus breaks news - much of our hard news could be garnered entirely from the College Web site. The structure, depth of reporting, and style of the articles are what keep people reading an 800-word sports piece rather than just a scoreboard.

It is quite clear that our society is rapidly losing its dependence on paper. Exchanges once made formal on paper are now increasingly done online - everything from personal banking to announcing the President-elect. As technology improves, especially with respect to handheld devices, paper will be used for nostalgic purposes only (no more Green Issues ... ). But I don't see society giving up on its desire for lengthy, in-depth and well-written stories anytime soon. And as of right now, print is still the best way to read a good piece.

Certain media outlets have done a wonderful job of moving to the Web. Others have had less success. There can be no question that the speed of the Internet puts breaking news (not quality news) at a premium, and this presents obvious problems. Too often Internet journalism is plagued by decisions favoring haste over quality, and reader-response over real reporting. With low barriers to entry, Internet journalim can empower non-professionals to be reporters and pundits, and the results are not always pretty. Only when Internet journalism assumes a more mature structure, following the strong lead of some of our most established papers and magazines, will we look to it with the same confident eyes with which we look to print.