ABSTRACT
The neo-gothic sandstone pink architecture of London's St Pancras railway station, built in the 1860s, stands in stark contrast to The Guardian's high-tech glass fronted headquarters nearby. Together the buildings straddle journalism's historic fault lines – from the age of steam when the printed word often only travelled as fast as the fastest locomotive, to the internet where words move at the speed of light. The country's biggest newspaper, Corriere della Sera, had seen its circulation of 668,130 in 2006 collapse to 420,802 in 2014, while the other national dailies, La Republica and La Stampa, were in a similar position – all heavily relying on classified advertisements to fund their journalism. As all communications systems collapse onto a single internet pathway, the concentration of power into the hands of the huge American corporations Facebook and Google has made them the biggest monopolies the world has ever seen.
