The evolution of information delivery: Can newspapers survive?

I’ve been a little obsessed with the delivery of information lately, in part because of letters, postcards and telegrams my great-grandmother and grandmother saved. The oldest is from 1910; the most recent from the ’70s. In one, a mid-’30s letter, the writer complains that a new delivery system by the U.S. Postal Service means letters from north central Missouri to northeast Kansas are no longer delivered next-day.

The U.S. postal system was founded in 1775; the Post Office Act of 1792 established the Post Office Department. Mail was delivered by stagecoach and Pony Express started in 1860, and ended a year and a half later. Mail from St. Joseph, Mo., to Sacramento (and vice versa) took only 10 days. (The fastest was 7 days, 17 hours — President Lincoln’s inaugural address.) In 1861, the transcontinental telegraph line was completed and operated for eight years until it was replaced by a multi-line telegraph that ran along the Transcontinental Railroad. Telegraphs were quicker, but hardly effective for long correspondence.

The postal service began using trains in 1832 in Pennsylvania. As train service expanded, so did the postal service’s use, peaking in 1930. Cars began to replace horses and stagecoaches in 1899, although they weren’t commonly used for another 10 years. Scheduled airmail began in 1918, which, of course, cost more. The first transcontinental flight took place a year later.

Telephone technology also was developing. The first manual switchboard was introduced in 1878. By 1904, there were more than 3 million telephones in use, but subscribers of different phone companies could not call each other until 1913. The first dial telephone was introduced in 1919, which helped industry growth through the ’20s.

Experiments with radio began in 1893; early uses were Morse code and military communication. The first radio news program was broadcast in 1920.

In 1926, the postal service began contracting commercial flights to transport mail. The use of railway post offices rapidly declined with the Highway Act of 1958, and ceased in 1971. Trains were — and still are — used to transport mail, but highways went to more places and airplanes were faster for great distances.

Televisions have been available since the late 1930s. The ’70s brought video recordings, leading to VHS, VCRs and DVDs. Telephone service also continued to evolve and prices decreased. The first fiber optic cable was installed in 1977, and cell phones took off in the 1990s.

And, of course, there’s the Internet. E-mail, instant messaging, Twitter, blogs, social networks and many other forms of communicating.

From 1910 through 1914, all of the correspondence my great-grandmother saved were postcards. From 1916 to 1935, that changed to letters — most from my great-grandfather before they got married, others, especially after they married, from her brother, parents or friends. From the ’40s, I have letters my grandmother sent to her parents. Today, I write to my mother and grandfather via e-mail and they call from their cell phones. My grandfather has a Web site. My mother sends me text messages and reads blogs.

How communication is relayed has changed, to be sure. But if everyday people, spanning generations, can do it, why is it so difficult for newspapers to embrace change? Why is an editor proud when he announces he never reads blogs — “only news stories”? Radio and television have the advantage of immediacy; newspapers have, basically, been printing the same way for hundreds of years. So where are we really headed? Is there any way to ensure newspaper’s survival?