Men in plaid flannel shirts chopped down trees and cut them into lumber that was sent to people who turned it into pulp. Somebody added water and then processed the cellulose sludge into thin sheets that were bleached.
Skilled workers known as printers either “letterpressed” or “lithographed” words and pictures onto the paper. The end product was folded and put into plastic bags. They were called “newspapers.” A guy would drive around town and throw them onto people’s lawns.
The fatal limitation of newspapers was that they could not be individually customized to reflect a reader’s preconceived version of the truth. Everybody read the same news and insisted on debating the facts. Worker productivity suffered.
There was also something called “books.” We are pretty sure books were not thrown onto people’s lawns.
See also: Primitive Media; Pre-digital technology; Fish, wrapping them in newspaper; The funny pages
