When I was 9 years old my father decided, after having already published and edited a newspaper that for mostly political reasons was burnt down in Melbourne, Australia, to start up another, called Neoi Dromoi (new paths).
My father is one of these people that will never stop sharing information, no matter where he is whatever he’s doing he will send a photo and a few words (even this week from China, I and 20 of his friends got a photo of a sunrise in Guangzhou, a description of the weather and what he was up to) it’s just in his nature.
Back when he was young it was in his nature to speak his mind, and leaving Greece for ideological reasons that went against a military coup and writing about these wasn’t easy, as he learnt the hard way.
But he never gave up, he changed and eventually interests led him out of the field but one thing has remained the same for him – print is sacred.
I’m sure this has more than a lot to do with my reverence for the print medium. I place it above all else.
Print will never be out of fashion for me, oh sure I can imagine some IT techie enthusiast buying his first born a kindle when they turn four and head to kinder garden but I’m one of those who would still probably buy my daughter a collection of Anne of Green Gables books, or my son a series by Jules Verne stories or switch those depending on personality traits!
There’s nothing like print and its power is still more than felt today, particularly when it comes to censorship and governments, because print can make changes.
International Federation of Journalists Human Rights Officer Ernest Sagaga knows all too well the power of print and what it can do to governments – “I don’t believe that print will ever disappear, there will be a lot of change, there are already changes, we see it now, people in developing countries turn towards the internet for their daily information.
“But you know they said when television came up that newspapers would disappear and that never happened, it’s true that television became more popular but newspapers are still here,” he reminded me in the same breath that he uses to highlight cases from a minimum of 10 countries around the world forcing journalists into jails and censoring them for breathing a word that’s negative. In other words, for doing what I take for granted each week, their job.
Athens News’ editor for the last 10 years, before he handed in his notice, John Psaropoulos, talks about the power of print in a recent blog post in his ‘The New Athenian’: “For a number of years now the marketplace's proposition to newspapers has been untenable: “You pay for journalists to report the news and make as much money as you can from dwindling news stand and advertising sales; and we will choose to either buy newspapers or read them free online, and even steal their content to create virtual newsstands.”
But the basics are simple and obvious he says and narrows it down to, “The newspaper that establishes a consistent record of independent and objective reporting and analysis will ultimately win.”
 “Despite seismic changes in the media landscape, newspapers continue to be an integral part of our daily lives. They educate and influence; they entertain and delight; they provoke and inspire debate,” says the World Newspaper Association.
Newspapers may change and grow, mainly online, but the drive to tell a story and the feel of a printed newspaper and its relative weight cannot.

Follow Alia Papageorgiou on twitter @eurocentrique or email her alia@neurope.eu