It's is all Very Well Living in the Digital age, but...

At my house, an underappreciated Cambridge terrace filled up with me and two boys (also graduate journos), talk is always turning to the fact we've pitched ourselves into an industry that is having a bit of a flail.
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At my house, an underappreciated Cambridge terrace filled up with me and two boys (also graduate journos), talk is always turning to the fact we've pitched ourselves into an industry that is having a bit of a flail.

Thanks to this little ditty on Press Gazette last week, the newsroom in my building got well and truly jittery: Iliffe News 'highly likely' to consider daily to weekly switch. A whole lot of flapping over chat that seems pretty speculative, but when papers are falling thick and fast into memory and not chip shops, you can't help but worry.

Sat around our grubby kitchen table discussing our regional news fates, we realised that in terms of a back-up plan, we might be in trouble. What are we meant to do if people don't want to buy what we write? Are our words even worth buying? Because apparently they're nowhere near worth the price of the ink and paper they're printed on.

The thought of a world in which newspapers are only for the elite (they'll become luxury items that only the loaded can get their hands on) and paperbacks die a death that means we'll all be trying to keep our Kindles sand free and out of children's mouths (board books, seriously, my 2-year-old nephew will tell you that 'Googly Farm' just won't be the same on an iPad, they aren't chew-friendly) is devastating. It would be like going back to the middle ages when people were divided by how literate they were; in our case it'll be whether your can afford to carry a screen around with you.

Possibly the best thing to do, other than come to a compromise, is to barricade yourself in with magazines and hope for the best.