NEWSPAPERS MOVE TO TOMORROW WITH TODAY'S NEWS

Imagine a newspaper office in the mid-1800s when the big news of the day was a newfangled invention called the telegraph. Information could be sent instantly over long distances.

Editors and newspaper owners likely worried what the invention would mean for the future of their industry. The result was the potential for improved news gathering.

The same scenario took place after the invention of the telephone, the radio and television.

Newspaper editors and owners face a similar situation today with the emergence of the Internet.

Southeast Missourian Editor R. Joe Sullivan thinks that new media and technology, including the Internet, offer newspapers another way to gather information.

"I think we should embrace the new technology," said Wally Lage, publisher of the Southeast Missourian. In fact, the Cape Girardeau newspaper has recently invested in ISDN telephone links with the Internet and has developed a wide area network to link publishing operations in three states.

"These allow us immediate contact and the ability to send huge files over data lines," Lage said. "It enhances what we do."

The newspaper is also developing an online product designed to complement the printed product but not replace it.

Both Lage and Sullivan agree the traditional newspaper printed on newsprint and delivered to readers' doors isn't likely to be replaced anytime soon.

"The newspaper is user-friendly," Sullivan said. "It's easy to handle, to compartmentalize, to sectionalize. These are features we've built on for the past 200 to 300 years."

Readers can't take their PCs to the front porch or the bathroom, not yet at least.

A recent study cited in Editor and Publisher looked at why people go online. The three top reasons were to send e-mail (30 percent), to get research information (29 percent) and to "surf the Web" (16 percent). Only a fraction of Internet users look to online sources for breaking news.

Lage reads varying news reports online daily, the Internet can't compete with the Southeast Missourian. Local news isn't offered.

Lage said people have access to hundreds of television stations and radio stations, but just one hometown newspaper.

"We are still doing the same basic thing we have always done. Providing local news and information," Lage said. "And we are the only source of it."

While others worry about technology's impact on the newspaper, Sullivan is more concerned about changes in society and how people choose to spend their time. For newspapers, he said, "it's all about readership."

"People are pretty particular about what they do with their free time," he said. "I think the future of newspapers depends less on Internet or television competition and more on our ability to produce a product people want to spend time on."