We asked last week if the end of journalism as it came to be in the decades during and after World War II is nearing. But it may also be that nothing stays the same very long in this country and the distribution of news continues to change. Throughout America's history, change has come with great rapidity.
Inventions spawn improvements, which spawned new inventions.
James Burke wrote a companion book to his 1979 Public Broadcasting series called Connections, in which he showed how ancient inventions slowly led to later discoveries. Attempts to pump water from mines in the 15th Century led to the discovery of air pressure, which led the invention of the barometer and Alexander Graham Bell's telephone. In 15th Century Germany Johann Gutenberg invented movable type, which created the printing revolution. But he didn't pull his discovery out of thin air. He studied existing techniques of woodblock printing.