Written 1-6-2020
Although we no longer subscribe nor read the local daily newspaper anymore it’s rather sad to see that today is our last local printed Monday newspaper.
We do buy the Friday local newspaper primarily for the weekend guide and buy both the Portland Oregonian and Vancouver’s Columbian newspapers on Sunday mornings to keep our Sunday morning traditions alive. (Bigger breakfast, rustling newspapers, Sunday comics.) We should note too that both of us have frequently noticed that many of the feature articles in the Sunday newspapers were already read earlier in the week on our phones.
I grew up with newspapers. My first job in middle school was delivering the Miami Herald newspaper each morning in Ft Lauderdale, FL. In high school, in Los Angeles, I discovered the tenacity to follow the article jumps five times throughout a copy of the Los Angeles Times before I got to the end of many articles.
In college, I learned the craftmanship of gathering information, organizing it, crafting a compelling introduction, and including other voices than yourself before finishing with a kicker ending while writing news articles. For all that effort, I was rewarded with a shiny new Journalism Degree from Arizona State University.
The newspaper industry and magazine industries have both collapsed. Free instant access to the worldwide internet fascinated many readers both on their computers then later with their smart phones and tablets. All that time and interest took away any real source for advertising revenue for newspapers and magazines.
The internet has already disrupted the music industry, retail industry, entertainment industries, education industry, manufacturing industry, financial industries, and transportation industries. The informative news industry should be no different.
This newer internet thing represents newer sources of information, newer authorities, newer shopping opportunities, newer audiences, newer distribution networks, and newer alliances including newer ways to discover everything. Multimedia videos with compelling animations, and music have increasingly replaced basic articles themselves. Younger audiences are compelled to ask, “If I’m going to learn something? Why can’t I be entertained at the same time?”
There is more accessible information today available than there has ever been before but due to dwindling reading and analytical skills many are losing the abilities to decipher what they do read.
There was a time where newspapers and magazines did the heavy lifting for us:
- They were authoritative.
- They held themselves to a balanced presentation.
- They took on the establishment.
- They exposed fraud and corruption.
- They highlighted cultural diversity.
- They constantly discovered new heroes in the community.
- If they were true journalist, they acted as fair referees who identified perhaps 10 descriptions to an event or activity, sorted away the fringe descriptions on both sides, then worked harder to clarify which descriptions in the middle best included all aspects of the really happened.
In a way, newspapers and magazines have been the true glue to our democracy by identifying shared truths, true progress, and meaningful community goals. Starting next Monday, it looks like we’re joining many other communities with a little less glue here in Vancouver, WA.
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