I first started reading newspapers about 68 years ago, when I was in the third grade and my folks subscribed to an afternoon newspaper. 

Afternoon papers are mostly dead now, and many of their morning sisters are on life-support. The paper I subscribe to locally has gone from broadsheet to tabloid, presumably to save money on newsprint. More and more people are turning to a medium that does not require newsprint. It’s the Internet.

If newspapers make the total transition to electronic delivery, I hope they continue to follow the tradition that was pounded into my typing fingers when I was a cub reporter: Get to the point, be accurate and be objective. The standard format for a news story was called the inverted pyramid: You put the most important information in your first paragraph and gave the rest of the facts in descending order of importance.

The news I read from non-newspaper sources on the Internet seems to follow the tradition of the super-market tabloids: Tease the readers; sucker them into clicking on your website.

Yesterday, I logged onto AOL and was greeted with this enigmatic headline:

“Major shift seen in U.S. exports.”

As I wondered what the major shift was, I read the next few lines: “What was America’s top export in 2011? It’s something you probably wouldn’t expect. Surprising trend marks historic change."

Still almost totally uninformed about the gist of the story, I bit, clicking on the headline. On the other side of the click I found, to my mild surprise, that gas and other fuels are the country’s top exports for the first time. Why couldn’t I get that information without clicking?

Had I been reading a conventional newspaper, I would have been informed via headline that “Fuels top U.S. exports for first time in history.” No guessing involved. I could have paused to read the entire story or I could have gone on to a more attention-grabbing topic. By browsing the headlines, I would have gotten a basic idea of the day’s top news stories. I could have dug deeper, according to the depth of my interest.

The Internet tends to snub the time-honored practices of newspapers and opt for the tactics of the sleazy tabs that border the checkout lines at grocery stores. Their object is not to inform quickly and conveniently. It’s to sucker us into adding the rag sheet to our basket of groceries, to be read at home during commercials, during the dead intervals in TV programing, or during boring segments of “60 Minutes”: Who is Kim seeing now that she’s ditched Kris? Where is Kurt now that J. Lo is in Chile, and whom, if anybody, is she hooking up with while they’re apart?

The Internet gossip sites love to tempt you with teasers about what the celebs were wearing for the Oscars, the Grammies and the other awards shows. What you see after you click is often outrageous and frequently unsightly, but hardly more explicit than the outfits some people wear to Walmart.

The news sites even try to jazz up content as mundane as the price of housing.

“What this Denver home is hiding,” read the come-on accompanying a picture of a prosaic-looking bungalow. “It’s a typical size for what you’ll find in the Mile-High City. And while this home was built in 1990, you wouldn’t know it by peeking inside."

The house looked like something built during the 1940s, but when I forced myself to click for a peek inside, I found a series of photos of houses in a number of cities. One of the homes was the Denver bungalow, and the exciting news was that it had 1,354 square feet of living space, the interior had a contemporary look, and the asking price was $279,000. Hardly worth a click, unless you live in Denver and have 280 grand or so to spend on a small house.

My traditional newspaper would have told me: “Small Denver bungalow on market for $279,000.” Then I could have moved on to the classifieds.

“Charges filed in air explosives case,” read the teaser on another Internet morsel. Then, “Where was he was flying to?”

On the other side of the click, I learned that the subject tried to board a plane in Midland, Texas. He was carrying “explosives in military-grade wrapping,” whatever that means, and was bound for Fort Bragg, N.C., for whatever that’s worth. I’m not sure why the destination was relevant. It hardly seemed worth the click to find out.

Those of us who grew up loving newspapers would be relieved to see the medium migrate successfully to the Internet (well, we’d rather see it survive in print), but not in the style of the dirt-dropping tabloids.

I’ve thought about how these pseudo-journalists on the Internet would have handled major news events of the past. Here are some historic turning points, chronicled in Internet lingo:

April 15, 1912: Passenger liner sinks in mid-Atlantic. What caused it to sink? Where it was headed? How many went down with it?

June 28, 1914: Austrian nobleman shot in Sarajevo. Why he was there. Why Vienna and Berlin are upset. Why Russia cares.

Oct. 29, 1929: Stock market casts shadow over Hoover administration. Why president may have problems securing a second term.

Dec. 7, 1941: Strange airplanes zoom over Hawaii. Where they came from. What they did to Pearl Harbor. White House’s response.

June 6, 1944: Thousands wade ashore on beaches of Normandy. Where they came from. Where they’re headed. Reaction in London and Berlin.

Aug. 6, 1945: Japanese city disappears from map. What caused it. Who ordered it.

Nov. 22, 1963: President’s motorcade encounters troubles in Dallas. What was found in the Texas Textbook Repository? Why Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested.

Before television and the Internet, we would have heard all this straight from the throat of a newsboy on the streets, who would have been shouting the headlines to us:

“RMS Titanic sinks after striking iceberg. More than 1,500 dead.”

“Archduke Ferdinand of Austria killed by Serbian nationalist, as Europe hurtles toward war.”

“New York stock market crashes; disastrous depression looms.”

“Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, sinking four battleships.”

“Allies invade Europe via Normandy beaches.”

“U.S. drops atomic bomb, wipes out Hiroshima.”

“President Kennedy assassinated during Dallas motorcade.”

Many newspapers now have on-line sites that don’t require you to guess at what is behind the teasing headlines. If the Internet is destined to become our primary source of news, then that’s the direction we should be going.

But I’m still partial to the news sheets I can hold in my hand while working my crossword, keeping up with the local news or absorbing the political wisdom of pundits who know how to write. And, of course, they’re a lot handier than laptops when it comes to swatting flies.

Readers may write Gene Owens at 104 Belspring Lane, Anderson SC 29621 or email him at WadesDixieco@AOL.com.