A sound of morning silence is coming to Atlanta. The sound of newspapers landing on sidewalks in residential neighborhoods will vanish when, at year’s end, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, joining a national trend, stops publishing print editions.

Turning trees into paper, marking it with ink, trucking it to people who deliver it to readers — soon this laboriousness might be as forgotten as men with tongs lugging large slabs of ice for home iceboxes. The waning of the 400-year era of newspapers is, however, about cultural changes more momentous than the efficiency and convenience of written words presented digitally.

George Will’s email address is georgewill@washpost.com.

Read the full opinion at washingtonpost.com.

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