Those were the days… when the thud of the newspaper falling at the doorstep and the rustle of its pages added to the refreshing charm of the morning air. It’s a long time since we last saw the newspaper boy, isn’t it? For that matter, when we did last use the word ‘newspaper’?

Year 2034. We are besieged by news and more news; views and more views. No print paper, much to the delight of environmentalists. Remember the campaign they ran decades ago asking us not to take printouts so that trees could be saved? Whether death of the dailies has led to a wider expanse of green cover is yet to be established.

Anyway, the good-old newspaper — the essential companion to the morning cup of steaming coffee — now lies buried deep under the wreckage technology has unleashed.

What a transformation! Twenty-five years ago, the topic of discussion was ‘How will newspapers be in 2034’. Looking back, we didn’t even realise then that the word ‘newspaper’ itself wouldn’t exist. Yet, there were diehard conformists who refused to believe that the morninger would ever be dead. It is so integral to human lifestyle, they argued. In spite of technology, did we stop having our breakfast, they asked?

Look, what’s happened! Newspapers are dead! Long live the newspaper! No one prints newspapers! Three reasons for that: one, today everything is available easily online; internet is no longer the preserve of the rich and the haves. Two, online archives are available at a reasonable price, and virtual newspapers can be easily searched and accessed. You print out a newspaper if you need to.

Three, lifestyle itself has changed. Once upon a time, people woke up in the morning to know the previous day’s news. Today, who waits for the next day; why should they? They can read the latest news anytime of the day. Before going to bed, some people watch television, some listen to the radio (yes, they are still around since you can listen to news while driving or cooking or when lying on bed) and others read the Intaz.

For the uninitiated and the ignorant, Intaz is now the closest to what newspapers were like before. It has evolved from the multimedia gizmos that once only the gadget-friendly rich guys could afford. Intaz is of the size of a foldable notebook, smaller than what used to be called the laptop but a bit bigger than the palmtops most of us have. It’s a high-tech wired multimedia device, mostly used to store and retrieve data.

Its hi-res text and imagery make it the virtual substitute for newspapers. With embedded video, it is much more than the static newspaper. A reader also has access to a multiplicity of sources for getting information depending on his preferences. 

Not many explanations on the etymology of the word. The most popular one is that ‘in’ stands for information; and ‘taz’ is a derivative from foreign words that mean ‘cup’: tasse in French, taza in Spanish, tazza in Italian, tase in Latvian and tass in Estonian. So basically Intaz means a container of information.

Twenty-five years ago, a person in Bangalore, who hailed from Banaskanata in Gujarat, never got to know to what was happening in his hometown. Today on his Intaz, he has two local sections: one, Bangalore and the other Banaskanta. Customization is the key. You set your Intaz to what you want to access.
 
The basic feeds, atom and RSS (really simple syndicate popular way back in 2009), are now far more technologically refined. The Intaz has Newsline and Viewsline options: one gives us bare facts, information, shorn of all interpretation and analysis. The other gives us comments, opinions and views. No one now complains that the media are mixing news with views. Choose what you want, get what you want.

Readers are a far more satisfied lot. The good-old newspaper packed too many things into too many pages, with the result every reader invariably got something he didn’t like. For example, a cricket fan who didn’t like tennis, had to bear the hyper Wimbledon coverage every June-July. No longer; since his customised Intaz doesn’t get any tennis feeds at all.

Not just readers, even big-time media houses are happy with the new trend. Satisfying all the readers all the time was an impossibility that editors wrestled with every day. They were accused of either bias; or underplaying some events or overplaying some others. No more of those brickbats. Advantage one, online there is no shortage of space. Advantage two, there is a clear demarcation between news and views. And now, finally, it’s been revealed that it’s the reader who is biased (in terms of preferences of news and views) and not the media houses!

Before newspapers were finally laid to rest, there were fears — expressed mainly by people who still live in 2009 — that Intaz and its customisation features would ruin the intellectual health of the society. People will read only what they want to read. Many were worried that in the absence of multiplicity of views, people wouldn’t be exposed to counterviews. Some felt that with the demise of the newspaper, the general knowledge level of people would plummet.

Mercifully, those fears haven’t come true. A few years have gone by since we have been in this paperless 24×7 news world. Nothing has befallen the society that can directly be attributed to the demise of traditional format newspapers.

Printed newspapers lasted more than 500 years. How long will we live in this newspaper-less world? What next? From online where? The sage once said everything in the world goes around in circles. Will some day, some one in the next generation, rediscover the romance of  the newspaper?

(This article was published today in The Times of India, Bangalore, as part of a series of articles commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Bangalore edition.)