I spent a very happy afternoon this week talking to a class of 11-year-olds about the job of a journalist and the role of a reporter.
But what I passed on to them probably wasn’t nearly as interesting as what they passed on to me.
When I was a youngster, huge numbers of newspapers arrived in houses every morning.
My parents had a national paper delivered every day and would spend plenty of time poring over its pages, absorbing the news and filling in the crossword.
And every day I’d take a peek myself, wondering at events in distant lands and reading every sports report I could find.
But of the 30 children I spoke to, only a couple regularly saw a national newspaper. Which isn’t to say they’re ignorant of the news - far from it.
In fact I suspect today’s children may well know more about current affairs than my own generation, but just don’t realise it.
They pick up news from websites, radio and TV. It soaks into their brains and comes out when they’re not expecting it, like subliminal intelligence.
They’re also, from my experience, much more aware the modern media can be manipulated and things they see and read, especially online, might just have to be taken with a pinch of salt.
The way we consume news is changing profoundly, which will affect newspapers, TV programmes, radio and, yes, even websites.
It’s not better or worse, but different - a result of the incredible pace of development of technology in general, and the web in particular.
And what’s really remarkable is that nobody - really, nobody - can say for sure where it’s going next.
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