Icy morning emphasizes print's shortcoming

This morning, which dawned with bright sunshine and clear blue skies looking down on a landscape painted white by soft snowfall overnight, offered a reminder of the shortcomings of a printed newspaper. When I walked out in the brightening dawn to pick up my morning paper, my newspaper was not at the end of the driveway. As I do in this situation, I stood and surveyed the area, checking the shrubs by the street and the curb on either side of the driveway cut. No newspaper. I walked back to the house, quickening my step to get out of the 17-degree chill and into the warmth of the kitchen.

At the kitchen table, I sipped my coffee but felt unfulfilled. I needed to be reading, concentrating on something more complex than raising the mug to my lips and sipping the dark, hot liquid. Our household computer sits on a desk near the kitchen table, and I didn't have far to move to call up the News & Observer's Web page. I loaded the page and skimmed through the headlines, finding nothing surprising or unexpected but decided not to sit and read through the stories online.

Normally, I'd spend more 45 minutes or more reading through the print edition, sometimes leaving a section or two to read later in the day. But the online news doesn't hold my attention nearly so long. What some online advocates don't seem to understand (or choose to ignore) is that not every article in the print edition is online. And the print ads, which are often interesting and informative in themselves, are not online either.

So give me the print edition. Even on a day like today, when treacherous roads in Raleigh make my morning paper a mid-morning or later edition. The sun is up; Wilson roads are mostly clear and safe, but there's still no newspaper at the end of my driveway. I think I'll stroll out into the cold and check once more.