Is it pre-ordained that some industries maintain two different "camps", keeping them virtually at odds and isolated from one another by de facto circumstances and self-induced fear tactics? Human nature tends to deal with the resistance of inevitable change by putting blinders on until some unseen force tears them off, making it clear that the future is here, no matter what they do to delay it. Radio moguls resisted television, stenographers resisted word processors ("just give me my old trusty IBM Selectric..?") , and now it seems that entire newspaper consortiums are resisting mention of the Internet in both advertising and editorial content for their newspapers.

Similar to the avoidance of the Internet once presented by the Realtor community, a wall of fear goes up when a lack of knowledge is the culprit. And how many of us Baby Boomers felt totally overwhelmed and just a little intimidated by the introduction of the World Wide Web into our lives? We "little people " have lots of excuses, however. It takes time, patience, and training (and waiting for computer prices to come down) for us to finally get a handle on what a far-reaching and awe-inspiring medium the Internet really is. But once we're there, we're hooked.

People in the business of disseminating the news, informing us of change in written form have no such excuses, however. We rely on them to widen our horizons, color our opinions and take us to the next level of sophisticated knowledge on so many subjects. Take a look at your local paper, then, and count out how many articles you can find dealing with the Internet. Web site reviews? Mergers between large ".com" entities? And when you do, how many stories deal with Internet fiascoes, such as kidneys being offered on E-Bay, or unsuspecting teenagers riding off into the sunset to meet child molesters?

The truth is, so much good has been added to our lives with the advent of the Internet, many newspapers' resistance to articles dealing with the Web's explosion into our lives can be likened to the fable of the "Emperor's New Clothes." Take the real estate community, along with the builder/developers of our new home communities. The amount of dollars budgeted for marketing and advertising has no doubt increased considerably since the Internet began to become a necessary medium, along with print advertising. No matter how hard they tried, most savvy real estate types could not ignore the necessity of creating web sites and now boast a www.com somewhere on their literature or business cards.

But did that mean that this industry could now downplay their use of print promotions in the weekend newspaper? Hardly. After all, we can't sit down for our Saturday morning cup of coffee with our spouses around the kitchen table and read the Internet. It's not feasible for most of us to plan out our tour of new home communities by throwing a computer in the back seat as a guide. How many reams of paper and how much of our morning would it take to print up every builder's web site list of new homes before we loaded the kids in the car for a drive? We naturally grab the weekend real estate section of the paper and merrily begin our quest for a home, whether we're armed with a fist full of classifieds or a collection of slick display ads by builders. These ads are not only educational to our home shopping trip, but also eye-catching and a pleasure to behold with their sophisticated descriptions and photographs of new homes.

Newspapers in general do not feel the need to deal with the Internet in most cases, however. And their conspicuous lack of reporting news created by this important medium is what puzzles and frustrates journalists in general, however. By avoiding it or making it more evil than good, they create a competition that many of us do not believe needs to exist. Now that television shows advertise on the radio, and REALTORS® understand that they need not relegate themselves to the confines of local MLS services, newspapers should begin to embrace the alliances that can be formed between cyberspace and hard copy layout. Indeed, some major newspapers, such as the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Diego Tribune and New York Times have embraced the concept. Many of us who live in smaller burgs, however, still cannot pick up a copy of our local paper and see the Internet dealt with in true editorial form. Nor can we see a list of builder web sites listed all on one page for easier reference, even if those builders have forked out thousands of dollars for their weekend print ads. You can, however pull up all the newspaper's real news on the paper's web site. This is news, however, that skirts the mention of the very method used to retrieve it ..

We may someday look back on our days of Christopher Columbus-like dealings with issues such as these. Change in some cases is slow to come, but we will eventually recognize that paradigm shifts in perception must take place to make way for the inevitable.

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Published: September 10, 1999

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A veteran of the real estate and homebuilding industries since 1986, Dena Kouremetis first joined Realty Times as a new homes writer in 1998. Since then, she has authored four books, written consumer columns on new homes issues for websites and newspapers all across the country, contributed to builder trade magazines, appeared as a guest expert on several radio shows and even created a ten-chapter podcast for LendingTree.com’s homebuilder website, iNest.com, now available on iTunes, entitled Uncharted Waters; Navigating the Purchase of a New Production Home. Kouremetis recently joined her local Folsom, CA Coldwell Banker office as a broker associate while continuing to write for the real estate industry. For the past three years, she has been training real estate agents for both the resale and new homes industries, putting her experience, research expertise and gift of expression to work to help others entering the business.