Who wins - TV or newspaper?

THIS is an old debate issue that crops up now and then among broadcast and hardnews people. Sometimes, even communications lecturers join in the fray. Everybody thinks one way or the other.
Yes, TV has more visual impact. Nothing like an inexorable tsunami wave to wake you up from your stupor but you can't beat a full length feature of how a bored housewife became a desperate housewife who became a fly-by-night hooker in her own neighbourhood. Now that kind of story, you can't capture on the television screen.
Of course, you can watch a movie with that kind of theme but a real-life story in print has a strange hold on your imagination. And as you know, an overactive imagination is the devil's workshop. So I twisted that phrase a little, so sue me!
It has been established that since the debate issue surfaced a few decades ago, the arguments have been going back and forth and is now happily lodged in a stalemate situation.
Television is most useful when urgency is the order of the day. We are all visual creatures. What we see on the screen affects all our senses. Reading about it the day after only fill in the missing pieces.
Newspapers and magazines do serve a purpose. Try eating breakfast without that newspaper. We have taken for granted such a small luxury for so long that if tomorrow we were to lose that privilege, there will be hell to pay.
There was a time in the early 20th century when newspapers were scarce and the majority of the people were illiterate. That was okay because people relied on news by word-of-mouth or through gossip.
These days, information being so readily accessible and available is taken for granted like the sunsine in the morning or breakfast on the table. These days, some people tend to use the phrase "information overload". And they are right, too.
Television is turning out to be one of the most relevant modern conveniences known to man in the 21st century. We are practically born to be addicted to the telly. Children are born-again TV addicts. Too many of them are wearing glasses as a result of an overdose of TV viewing but that's another sociological and health issue.
Newspapers on the other hand have been around since the time, man first learnt to read. We want to read anything and everything to keep ourselves informed. Never mind, if three quarters of the stuff in those printed pages have nothing to do with us, and do not improve your lives in any way, it really doesn't matter because when you put the newspaper down you naturally feel you have benefited in somewhere from those long minutes of reading the things that have happened in your country as well as in countries thousands of miles away from your backyard.
In the end, we come to the conclusion that there's no winner in a tug-of-war between TV and newspaper because the two mediums are complementary. One is just as essential as the other.
In other words, all our jobs are safe. We don't have to think about being roadside burger sellers or being some kind of social escorts, not that we have any of the necessary qualifications!!





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