Farewell to the Newspaper: Essay laments the decline of print journalism

Guillaume Pinson, a media history professor at Laval University in Quebec, expresses a profound nostalgia for the era of print newspapers in his new essay, "L'Adieu au journal" (Farewell to the Newspaper).

Pinson recalls a time when newspapers were ubiquitous, carried under the arm and read on public transport or at home, available from kiosks to village grocery stores. "This thing that had to be printed, delivered, unfolded, and stained our fingers has almost completely disappeared," he states, marking the end of an era.

The digital age, characterized by compulsive scrolling and constant content consumption, has replaced the deliberate reading of a physical paper. Pinson observes a parallel between people engrossed in newspapers in the past and those glued to their phones today. However, he highlights a crucial difference: the newspaper offered two distinct phases – reading and anticipation of the next issue. This allowed citizens time to reflect on the news and its implications.

"The desire for the future has been replaced by a saturation of the present," Pinson argues. The immediate gratification of digital news, he suggests, has eroded the space for contemplation, leaving individuals overwhelmed by the constant influx of information without the temporal distance that once allowed for deeper engagement with the world.