Newspapers vs. Internet: Is There Really a Difference?

When was the last time you sat back, and looked around at the world that we live in today, and at the same time reflected on just how far we have come in this high-tech society that we live in?

How many different areas in your own lives has the new age world of computers, digital gizmos, and all of the electronic wizardry taken over your everyday life?

Some of the different changes probably had a really big impact, and of course there were those that slowly, and ever so subtly snuck in under the radar.

Our lives usually evolve around the simplest of ideas that we usually take for granted, and even if change did come in, we were too caught up in what was going on around us to even take notice.

One of the simplest ideas that we Americans can relate to, is the everyday newspaper. This journal that tells the different stories as they happen from day to day is by far the most read piece of paper on a daily basis.

Sports fans have always been some of the biggest readers because of all the golden nuggets of stats, box scores, highlights, and it was the only place to get up to date sports stories as they happened.

Each morning, sports fans from around the country would wait diligently for their morning paper to arrive, just to be able to dig into what happened the night before with their favorite teams.

At the tip of your fingers you had everything you needed, but with one major drawback and that was you had to wait until the morning, since the evening news on T.V., didn’t show you comprehensive box scores.

But instead because of time constraints, all they showed were the scores and highlights.

When you think about it, the newspaper had a really huge influence on our lives. We not only relied on them, but we also put all our trust that they would bring us the best sports stories that the writers could write.

Were they always honest in the stories that they wrote about? And more times then not, did they write the stories that we wanted to read?

I’m sure we all had our favorite writers. Some of them you knew wrote from the heart, and of course there were those who wrote just for the paycheck. But either way, we learned to love those that took the time bring us these various sports stories.

Writing back then was considered an art, because it was only the chosen few that were hired to put their own feelings and words on the various papers that we read on a daily basis.

When you think about it, we were at their mercy unless you lived in a big city, and you had access to newspapers from around the country.

Another major drawback was it also depended on which city you lived in as to what kind of coverage you were going get. We already know that the home town teams always got top billing.

So what happened if you didn’t care for your hometown team, because maybe you moved from somewhere out of state, or you just grew up liking another team?

Newspapers had to cover all the local sports stories before they would cover national, because most of the readers were only interested in what went on around them.

Now I’m not saying this holds true for all readers, but mostly for the novice who was only interested in what went on in his own city.

Well before we knew what was happening, in came the high tech world of computers, and of course, following close behind was the Internet.

What the Internet did was open up a whole new world for the sport fan, since now any kind of stat, box score, or valuable piece of information was now available at the touch of your fingertips anytime of the day.

Whenever a race was over or a game had been played, within a matter of minutes the scores and stats are posted at the various sites without having to wait until the morning.

What the Internet did was give the average sports fan access to the some of the same information, which the news agencies would get via a teletype machine.

The Internet has been the hottest commodity to not only the fan, but also to the different media outlets, since now anything and everything that concerns sports in general, is posted at the various sites whether they be public or private sites.

NASCAR as we see it today is almost all Internet-based, especially when you look around at all the different sites that have evolved around this sport of ours.

It has opened up many doors for the fans to be able to interact with one another from various parts around the world, which was not the case before the World Wide Web became available.

Fans can now discuss, and also talk about the various aspects of NASCAR without having to leave the comforts of their own homes.

Convenience has to be one of the biggest commodities, when it comes to enjoying time interacting with the various fans that usually live out side of your area.

There are no more long distance phone bills, because most of the interaction can be done either through e-mail, IM, or by joining one of the many NASCAR communities that are out there.

So no longer are the fans confined to those that live around them, but instead they have many avenues in which to find fans from around this great country of ours.

So as we begin to look back at just how far we have come as a sport, not only has the sport itself changed, but change has also come by how we choose to view, and interact with it.

Without the Internet today, how many of us would have had the chance to meet some of the different fans that we have met from race track to race track, or the friendships that have been made through the different communities?

And how big would the sport be today, if it wasn’t for the many fans that take time out of their busy days to log on, and see what is happening without having to wait for the morning paper?

What the Internet did was open up a whole different world on how we view the sport today.

There is no way any of this would have been possible without it. Face it, all the newspaper could ever do is what it’s been doing for decades, and that is to just give us something comprehensive to read.

Someday the newspaper just might become obsolete along with the changing times.

It’s far too easy to sit back in your comfortable chair, and once you log on you have anything you could ever want at the touch of your fingertips.

Gone are the days of the journalists that spent hours doing research manually. Instead, now it's easy to just type in what you are looking for, and in seconds it pops right up on your screen.

No more grunt work having to take time to visit the various race shops anymore, its easy to just send, and wait for an email for the information that is needed to finish a story. Convenience has become a way of life in the culture that we live in today.

And why shouldn’t that be, especially when you look around at all the competition that is out there, and also all the opportunities that the Internet has opened up.

Where would we be without this great, and wonderful invention called the Internet?probably waiting for the morning paper to arrive.