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Newspapers are the original form of broadband communication, a distinction not always recognized in the age of the Internet. Long before we had computers, television, radio, telephones and telegraph, newspapers were the cheapest and most efficient way to reach mass audiences with news, commentary and advertising. Newspapers, from their beginnings as hand-printed broadsheets, have been a true random-access medium-readers can move easily and quickly through the different sections of a newspaper, returning to them days or even weeks later. And because a newspapers software consists of a common language, it possesses a universal and timeless quality. What Did the Growth of TV News Mean to Newspapers? With the growth of television news in the 1960s, newspapers confronted their first formidable competitor. Today, ABC News claims that more Americans get their news from ABC than from any other source-and its probably true. The United States 1,600 daily newspapers continue to serve millions of readers, but newspapers are no longer the countrys dominant mass medium. How to survive and even flourish in a culture more attuned to (吻合) electronic media than to printers ink is the most serious issue facing the newspaper industry as it enters the 21st century. It is safe to say that newspapers are not about to follow the Morse telegraph into oblivion. Newspapers are a portable, convenient medium. No one lugs a computer monitor to the breakfast table to get the morning news. And, newspapers are proving surprisingly adept at reinventing themselves for todays readers by emphasizing good design, color photography and detailed stories that report and interpret current events. | 
