The Tirconaill Tribune is thirty years old and thriving, which is hard to believe in an era when the growth of the internet turned newspapers upside down. Some of the great publications of the world have closed over these thirty years. Some are clinging on. My own beloved Guardian is reduced to giving away its content for free and begging readers for donations. Sad, indeed. There are a few exceptions, however. The ‘Washington Post’ is doing pretty well. I was lucky enough to visit their offices a little while back and was fairly impressed by the “digital traffic” boards mounted over the newsdesk. You can spend a good hour or two watching the world reading the Washington Post - it’s all up there on the digital boards. Where people are reading. How many are reading. What stories they are reading. It’s impressive. And expensive. But let’s not worry about where the Post is getting the money for this extravagance. It’s owned by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, the richest man in the world. He bought the paper for $250 million when it was down on its luck and invested twice as much again making it a great newspaper again.
