When I was young, I lived in a country that had no cable TV or satellite dishes. My only sources of news were from newspapers and radio. The Web practically did not exist.

First Exposure

In the early 90’s, I visited another country for over a month to visit relatives. Over there, I did have access to CNN International.

I was excited. CNN had made a big name for itself in covering the Iraq War.

I started watching. I watched my first news hour. I absorbed the news.

Hours later, I was curious to see what had transpired since I last watched. I tuned in to CNN, and…

The news was exactly the same.

Really? In the last six hours, nothing new happened around the world?

I watched it on and off for the rest of my vacation, and couldn’t help but notice that in 24 hours of CNN broadcasts, there was less news content than in my newspaper.

This bears repeating:

In 1-2 hours of reading a newspaper, I would learn more about what was going on in the world than by watching CNN International for 24 hours.

And I am not talking about voluminous newspapers like The New York Times. The newspapers I am referring to were about 12-14 pages, and had everything from comics, to entertainment, to sports, to world affairs.

What a letdown.