I'm the first to concede after nearly 50 years in this business that I initially was a hard sell on switching from the comforting feel of newsprint over morning coffee with a rectangular screen flashing with electrons.
Paper was not only familiar, but like I'm sure many other subscribers and readers also feel, it was a newspaper, for gosh sakes. That said, I've quickly adapted to 2020 America.
When things began radically changing in this craft several years back, I wasn't quick to embrace the concept of reading the news on a screen. It seemed downright unnatural, so initially I didn't care to play along.
But my attitude steadily softened as I better understood that this transformation from print to electronic news and entertainment delivery wasn't some newfangled marketing gimmick. It was a very real industry-wide struggle for economic survival in a world that continues to funnel everything historically familiar into new learning curves. And I do mean everything.
I remember dial and push-button phones attached to the walls of my homes, the now defunct video stores and manual typewriters. There were outmoded eight-track and cassette tapes and 18-inch television sets, no online commerce, Kmarts and stick-shift cars. Remember full-service gas stations and quarter-a-gallon gas?
The list of changes occurring has been dizzying, with so many thrust upon us in a relatively short time.
Now here I sit with my new individual iPad furnished at the expense of the state's newspaper, after having been shown how it works by one of the paper's personal trainers. In less than two weeks, the last delivered printed weekday edition of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette will plop in my driveway. With it will vanish this historical aspect I've appreciated about my product.
I will turn exclusively (except on Sundays, which will remain on paper) to my device, which I've already been pleasantly surprised to find is user-friendly and easy to access.
The stories I read online won't have changed from what would have appeared on ink and paper. Neither will the pictures and the other features that always have been part of this product. In most ways they will actually be enhanced.
What will have changed more than anything is my attitude and willingness to re-acclimatize from the long familiar reading experience that seemed as if it would last forever until relentless market forces prevailed.
I'm making this change of the times despite my natural and understandable regrets, the same regrets, incidentally, shared by Walter Hussman, the ADG's publisher, who is widely considered one of the very best at his job in this business.
I know of no other newspaper that would shell out $12 million to purchase iPads for every one of its subscribers as well as people to train them in how to use them. But, hey, that's just Walter and how much he cares about preserving this vital publication and this business.
As I write, Hussman has planned two trips to Harrison this month to personally discuss the transition, first with subscribers later this week, and later to address the city's Rotarians. Making this necessary transition to save our state's daily newspaper means that much to him.
I'll admit it will be nice--for the time being--to still have my Sunday paper in print. Yet I suppose in a month or so, once I'm fully tuned and settled into my iPad version, the electronic experience will become as normal as having read information of the day on newsprint all these decades. The morning coffee won't change.
In fact, here's a list of 11 aspects to the new iPad Democrat-Gazette I've already come to appreciate.
I no longer have to be concerned with a paper being late or undeliverable due to weather or press problems. It's waiting to be read by 4 a.m. every day.
I can have the daily paper with me when traveling or away from home to stay current with the news and happenings in our state and beyond.
I can use my fingers to easily enlarge the type for readability on a bright screen.
Photographs all are sharp, clear and in vivid color, and in many instances, I can simply touch the photo to see even more related pictures.
I can stay current with breaking news.
I'll never have a soggy, unreadable paper again.
I feel good knowing a lot of trees are not being offered up in order to transmit information from a newsroom directly into my house.
I enjoy being able to share a story at the touch of a keystroke, rather than clipping and snail-mailing.
It's reassuring to know iPad assistance is a phone call away.
I no longer have a large pile of previously read papers constantly accumulating in the garage.
I can access entire papers from the past week at the touch of a finger to recover or review stories, rather than having to track down hard copies of previous editions.
See, there really are advantages when we open our minds and give new a chance.
Now go out into the world and treat everyone you meet exactly like you want them to treat you.
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Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist, was editor of three Arkansas dailies and headed the master's journalism program at Ohio State University. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.
Editorial on 01/07/2020