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News-Sentinel.com Your Town. Your Voice.
Opening Arguments

Goodbye, Page 1

Is this print's last gasp? Both the New York times and the Los Angeles Times have announced that meetings to pitch stories for Page 1 are a thing of the past:

The change at both the N.Y. Times and the L.A. Times reflects a growing -- and quite belated -- realization among the country's leading newspapers that they must prioritize digital before print. 82 percent of Americans now get their news on a computer or laptop, while 54 percent get news on a mobile device, according to the 2014 State of the Media report from Pew Research.

That's one of the things we're losing in the transition from print to digital -- a Page 1. A Page 1 has to be put together by people who decide which, among all the stories of the day, deserved the most prominent display. You can agree with it or disagree with it, but it is a vision, and it gives a paper its personality. Online, everything is just thrown there together, none of it looking more important than any of it.

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