For over 200 years, this device we call the newspaper has been a ritual of culture that has been an important tool for helping to give meaning to our community’s structure.

For a cheap price, the news was available to all who could afford the 5 cents, then the 25 cents then the 50 cents. Now some dailies are moving to a dollar a copy. 

One of the realities of the 21st century is that news is no longer just news. For the well off and corporate, news is about social intelligence, market conditions, and political power. All of these factors have high prices associated with collection and distribution.

We are turning the corner on who will be news haves and news have nots.

Power, politically, socially, economically, will, in this new future, be given to those who move fast upon the first tides of breaking news. For the rest of humanity, news will become more of a way to softly sell to consumers, ideas, products, or maintain social order.