If you like “news clippings” in your “electronic mailbox,” thank the New York Times!

Citizens of cyberspace, rejoice!

Source: Library of Congress

By Nina Renata Aron

Life without Internet has become unimaginable. So much so that it’s hard to remember what a wifi-less existence was like — even for those of us who were at keyboards way back when.

This week, the New York Times is celebrating 20 years on the information superhighway. But it feels more like 100 when you read the 1996 article editors printed announcing the Gray Lady had gone digital.

The 1996 article heralding the NYT on WWW

Hoping to become a “primary information provider in the computer age,” the Times decided to squeeze all the news that’s fit to print into the “World Wide Web” to reach a global audience. It joined “Web-based information sites including television networks, computer companies, on-line information services, magazines and even individuals creating electronic newspapers of their own.”

Individuals! Creating electronic newspapers! What a world.

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