I was lucky to spend a few weeks working with the Daily Mail this summer. Love them or hate them, one thing became increasingly apparent: infinite content is the death of journalism.
In 2023, Press Gazette investigated the story output of leading UK news publishers. The MailOnline published an average of 1,490 stories per day in September 2023, more than a story a minute. It’s not just that online news buzzes in our pockets every minute, exhausting our brains, inducing anxiety, and desensitising us to catastrophes. There is just too much news.
Compare that to print. The Daily Mail publishes around 30 articles daily. The paper is carefully curated (yes, to reflect a political agenda) but also to create a manageable and digestible publication. My grandmother can sit down each morning and “read the newspaper”. The limit to news is not just better for our time and mental capacity; it forces editors to prioritise specific stories. Headlines and front pages come first. However, online, everything is ordered by what is most recent, and there is no way to distinguish what is significant. Blink, and you might miss it.
Print increases your chances of coming across new ideas and breaking those familiar accusations of the ‘echo chamber’. The Instagram algorithm is a deceptively infinite source of information. And as long as you keep scrolling, the tailored feed will never show you ideas beyond your comfort zone. There is enough information to fuel a feed for every belief. Finding print content, however, can prompt readers to confront divergent views. Whether in newsagents or the familiar rivalry of which newspaper, Cherwell or The Oxford Student, is on top of the pile in JCRs. You don’t have to pick them both up to see that there is other content out there. Unlike with the Instagram algorithm, it’s pretty clear when OxStu has stuck their copies on top.
I have to confess I have ulterior motives for wanting you to pick up a copy of Cherwell. Online news and information have the potential to be more inclusive and more accessible, to break through censorship and misinformation. But if an endless amount of content is available, doesn’t that limit our understanding just as much?
So, if you’re reading this online, pick up the print version (and tell your JCRs to buy more copies) to see if you notice a difference.
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