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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/dec/07/how-the-loss-of-newsprint-threatens-our-democracy-and-liberty
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| How the loss of newsprint threatens our democracy and liberty | How the loss of newsprint threatens our democracy and liberty |
| (2 days later) | |
| A forthcoming book, Lost for words: how can journalism survive the decline of print?, contains 50 essays by editors (current and past), academics, commentators and newspaper executives.* In something of a sneak preview, here is an edited version of one chapter, “If print dies so does freedom”, by journalist TIM CROOK, professor at Goldsmiths, University of London. | |
| The vital social habit of buying and reading a newspaper is in catastrophic decline, but I cannot resist. | The vital social habit of buying and reading a newspaper is in catastrophic decline, but I cannot resist. |
| I tried to be seen as the only lecturer prepared to carry around a newspaper in my journalism department in the hope of encouraging my colleagues, and the younger generation, to retrieve the habit. | I tried to be seen as the only lecturer prepared to carry around a newspaper in my journalism department in the hope of encouraging my colleagues, and the younger generation, to retrieve the habit. |
| I even invaded the corrupt and perverted space of online conversation to evangelise the beauty of print and mock the superficiality and superfluous vapidity of the digital cyber usurper. This has been to no avail. | I even invaded the corrupt and perverted space of online conversation to evangelise the beauty of print and mock the superficiality and superfluous vapidity of the digital cyber usurper. This has been to no avail. |
| There are journalism programmes in universities now which do not teach print design and publication. It makes me feel like a falling man of history, unable to do anything to resist an unendurable destiny of social disempowerment and political vulnerability. | There are journalism programmes in universities now which do not teach print design and publication. It makes me feel like a falling man of history, unable to do anything to resist an unendurable destiny of social disempowerment and political vulnerability. |
| I have had nightmares about desperately trying to locate articles and features I had been so sure about, but no longer exist in virtual space. | I have had nightmares about desperately trying to locate articles and features I had been so sure about, but no longer exist in virtual space. |
| I distributed sheets containing 10 statements and facts banned and censored in the UK over the last 50 years to 150 students in a lecture theatre. I then projected the same text on to a presentation screen from an externally published website. | I distributed sheets containing 10 statements and facts banned and censored in the UK over the last 50 years to 150 students in a lecture theatre. I then projected the same text on to a presentation screen from an externally published website. |
| I asked 10 students to do their best to destroy their sheets of paper and compared this inconvenience and difficulty with the speed and effortless deletion operation in the online software embedded on the lecture hall computer. | I asked 10 students to do their best to destroy their sheets of paper and compared this inconvenience and difficulty with the speed and effortless deletion operation in the online software embedded on the lecture hall computer. |
| Two clicks, one username and password, and whoosh. In a split second the maxims were gone as though they were never here nor there. Meanwhile, the students were still tearing into the paper. | Two clicks, one username and password, and whoosh. In a split second the maxims were gone as though they were never here nor there. Meanwhile, the students were still tearing into the paper. |
| I then asked the remaining 140 students to imagine there had been an executive government order backed by judicial injunction ordering them to surrender their sheets, and making it a criminal offence to possess or distribute them. | I then asked the remaining 140 students to imagine there had been an executive government order backed by judicial injunction ordering them to surrender their sheets, and making it a criminal offence to possess or distribute them. |
| If they wanted to keep their manifesto of subversion, resistance and liberty, how would they conceal it? Most realised the state was faced with myriad difficulties in search and retrieval. | If they wanted to keep their manifesto of subversion, resistance and liberty, how would they conceal it? Most realised the state was faced with myriad difficulties in search and retrieval. |
| How could it be so sure all of the students would give up their hot property? How could it be so sure of identifying and confirming who had received the paper? Was there a reliable data trail in credit and swipe card transactions? If free how could it have been receipted? | How could it be so sure all of the students would give up their hot property? How could it be so sure of identifying and confirming who had received the paper? Was there a reliable data trail in credit and swipe card transactions? If free how could it have been receipted? |
| The paper was easy to protect and harbour. It had no digital signature. Once it had escaped from the originating printing source it would be well-nigh impossible to track and destroy. | The paper was easy to protect and harbour. It had no digital signature. Once it had escaped from the originating printing source it would be well-nigh impossible to track and destroy. |
| When the 140 students with their own copies of the sheet dispersed into their social and physical human networks the challenge facing the authoritarian tendency was the same as trying to contain a contagious disease. | When the 140 students with their own copies of the sheet dispersed into their social and physical human networks the challenge facing the authoritarian tendency was the same as trying to contain a contagious disease. |
| It quickly dawned on the students that the digital version erased before their eyes, had, while available online, been connected with every downloader. | It quickly dawned on the students that the digital version erased before their eyes, had, while available online, been connected with every downloader. |
| The originator’s dangerous creation while ostensibly wiped was always stored somewhere on the computer’s hard disc, and had been mirrored by some digital back-up facility. | The originator’s dangerous creation while ostensibly wiped was always stored somewhere on the computer’s hard disc, and had been mirrored by some digital back-up facility. |
| George Orwell, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, predicted the dangers of combining totalitarian control with manipulative technology in social communication. | George Orwell, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, predicted the dangers of combining totalitarian control with manipulative technology in social communication. |
| He conjured the implication of the memory hole down which truth and the public record can be annihilated in a blast furnace or bonfire of human identity and history. What was being destroyed was also cultural dignity and independence. | He conjured the implication of the memory hole down which truth and the public record can be annihilated in a blast furnace or bonfire of human identity and history. What was being destroyed was also cultural dignity and independence. |
| When communication and information is centralised by technology on to one electronic platform Orwell’s vision of control is realised. This is what the internet has achieved. It means Winston Smith’s dystopian world of destroying the past is materialising into reality. | When communication and information is centralised by technology on to one electronic platform Orwell’s vision of control is realised. This is what the internet has achieved. It means Winston Smith’s dystopian world of destroying the past is materialising into reality. |
| The material newspaper form of local public record was essential in constructing my own family identity. But the record of the 1950s that helped me does not exist in the early 21st century. | The material newspaper form of local public record was essential in constructing my own family identity. But the record of the 1950s that helped me does not exist in the early 21st century. |
| The local newspaper industry has neither the manpower nor media institutions on the ground to achieve such micro-reporting and writing of the first draft of history. The online equivalents are unlikely to archive in the same way. | The local newspaper industry has neither the manpower nor media institutions on the ground to achieve such micro-reporting and writing of the first draft of history. The online equivalents are unlikely to archive in the same way. |
| Business failure and digital indebtedness to hosting servers could so easily result in the wiping of whole swathes of online journalism. This is condemning future generations to a rootlessness of origin and historical reference. | Business failure and digital indebtedness to hosting servers could so easily result in the wiping of whole swathes of online journalism. This is condemning future generations to a rootlessness of origin and historical reference. |
| I have no doubt the Orwellian liquidation and alteration of information is carrying on without challenge or social and political discomfiture. The European Court of Justice ruling in 2014 on the right to be forgotten through Google browser data processing means hundreds of thousands of articles and online records are being disconnected to the searching process. | I have no doubt the Orwellian liquidation and alteration of information is carrying on without challenge or social and political discomfiture. The European Court of Justice ruling in 2014 on the right to be forgotten through Google browser data processing means hundreds of thousands of articles and online records are being disconnected to the searching process. |
| This, in the old days, would have been the equivalent of a reference library without any catalogue or index. Courts in England and Wales regularly issue secret injunctions suppressing links to archives, and directly removing entire postings. | This, in the old days, would have been the equivalent of a reference library without any catalogue or index. Courts in England and Wales regularly issue secret injunctions suppressing links to archives, and directly removing entire postings. |
| I have seen the Metropolitan police change the detail of an important online media release which had huge significance in determining the public interest debate at the centre of a major story. | I have seen the Metropolitan police change the detail of an important online media release which had huge significance in determining the public interest debate at the centre of a major story. |
| I feel responsible for having let down the current younger generations who look at newspaper buying and reading as something quaint and bad for health – a bit like smoking a pipe or wearing a bowler hat to work. | I feel responsible for having let down the current younger generations who look at newspaper buying and reading as something quaint and bad for health – a bit like smoking a pipe or wearing a bowler hat to work. |
| We have plunged helter-skelter into blindly and thoughtlessly abandoning the art of quotidian reading by newspaper. The aspirant authoritarian and totalitarian can certainly wise up to the prospects for control, manipulation and disrupting the art of verification. | We have plunged helter-skelter into blindly and thoughtlessly abandoning the art of quotidian reading by newspaper. The aspirant authoritarian and totalitarian can certainly wise up to the prospects for control, manipulation and disrupting the art of verification. |
| This will always be something that can be avoided so much more reliably by exploring volumes of newspapers rather than forlornly search-engine surfing with the prevailing moniker: “Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe.” | This will always be something that can be avoided so much more reliably by exploring volumes of newspapers rather than forlornly search-engine surfing with the prevailing moniker: “Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe.” |
| This is something I experienced when writing the name of a famous and global celebrity in the Google search-box. There were 39,200,000 results in 0.66 of a second. | This is something I experienced when writing the name of a famous and global celebrity in the Google search-box. There were 39,200,000 results in 0.66 of a second. |
| Speed and scale were astonishingly impressive. But I could not help worrying about those results which “may have been removed” secretly. Print may be dying, but democracy and liberty may be also passing away with it. | Speed and scale were astonishingly impressive. But I could not help worrying about those results which “may have been removed” secretly. Print may be dying, but democracy and liberty may be also passing away with it. |
| *Lost for words: how can journalism survive the decline of print?, edited by John Mair, Tor Clark, Ray Snoddy and Richard Tait with Neil Fowler, is being published next month by Abramis. You can obtain a copy at the pre-publication price of £15 from richard@abramispublishing.co.uk. | |
| NB: The Media Society is staging a launch event for the book at the Groucho Club on 23 January at which I will discuss the book’s themes with one of its editors and contributors, Ray Snoddy. You can book here. |