I’ve just been reading this article on The Drum, highlighting reports claiming that The Guardian newspaper is going online-only, therefore ditching its printed edition altogether, in 2013.

If these reports have any truth in them, then I personally think it would be a bad move. Firstly, there’s the question of accessibility. I know of many elderly people who have grown up with newspapers, and buy them every single day, to see what’s happening in the world. Not only that, but the traditional newspaper brings together so many articles and so much variety into one publication. Does this happen on a website? No.

Secondly, there’s the Guardian’s mobile apps. I’ve tried to get on with the iPad app, I really have, but I just don’t like it. I’d much prefer to pay 20p and read through the Independent’s condensed ‘i’ Newspaper, something which brings ideas from digital and applies them to print. So before they give up on print altogether, I think the Guardian must really think about their app’s interface. It is, after all, in its first incarnation.

Digital is still in its early stages. There are still plenty of awful mobile apps around, mainly because the mobile app revolution is still happening - the app store only arrived four years ago, let’s not forget. The Guardian, in my eyes, with such a large readership of people from the older generations, would be daft to ditch print and completely rely on digital, let alone for it to happen so soon.