As someone who started reading newspapers around the age of 5, I have always held print journalism in high regard. No, I am not bragging that I was some sort of child genius at 5. I probably started reading the paper because I wondered why my parents were so weird about us interrupting them when they read the paper. As someone who was sucked into reading who was arrested, died, or analyzing the box scores for the DePaul Blue Demons, I quickly realized the attraction. Who was the town weirdo who constantly wrote Letter's to the Editor on a regular basis? I can't say too much because I actually had a guest column published once that caused quite the stir in my small town and I was only 22. We subscribed to two papers in our household - the morning, Rockford Register Star, and the afternoon, Freeport Journal Standard. Both papers were fairly horrible, especially the Rockford paper. Even as a kid, I recognized that both were light on the news and covered things differently.
My newspaper reading continued as a student at the University of Kansas when I had to get a subscription to the Kansas City Star and I lucked out at DePaul when my parents received the Chicago Tribune. I've read the Eugene Register Guard, Oregonian, and New York Times. All of them have their faults. I especially dislike the Oregonian but that is a different rant.
What is my point? It makes me nervous how newspaper readership has declined. In New York, I saw more people read the free daily newspapers than any of the other papers. Why read a paper when you can get the information on the Internet? I just can't let go of the paper. I look at articles on the Internet but I need the paper to be part of my daily routine.
Years ago, I heard a lecture at the Chicago Humanities Festival (best festival in the entire world) from a group of foreign correspondents talking about how the United States is perceived in the countries they are stationed. Not only was it a fascinating talk, I kept thinking about how so many newspapers are reducing their foreign bureaus. We see the same thing in television news broadcasts. What will happen when we don't have writers like Jack Germond? Newspapers with long histories such as the Sulzbergers and the New York Times? We've already lost the Chandlers from L.A. Now we are losing the Wall Street Journal's Bancroft's to Murdoch. I don't blame them. Newspapers are losing money but I worry about the ever increasing corporate influence of our media. It is all becoming so sanitized.
By the way, I am neurotic when it comes to reading the paper. Mary will quickly agree. I have routines that revolve around the paper and I get a little tense when they are disrupted. It is definitely something handed down from my parents.
3 comments:
I too love newspapers, but I read very little of them anymore, because I have so little time. That means I'm not very well-informed, because the internet really isn't an adequate substitute. Yes, I can find out the headlines, but unless I make a conscious effort to seek out intelligently-written articles, I'm left with AP and Reuters stuff, which is usually little more than... headlines. And so much stuff online is so biased (not that newspapers don't have their biases, but most are more objective than the average blog). I think Michael Gorman had a point about the "sustained reading of texts" falling by the wayside. That's certainly the case with me and newspapers. Sad.
I read all my news online - sigh. Who would have thought given the same attitude about interrupting my mother's newspaper reading (surprise, surprise)? I read the newspaper every afternoon in junior high and high school rather than do homework first thing...and was upset when the Milwaukee Journal was late on any given afternoon. Sundays were all about my mom going into H-land and getting the Tribune at the one place that sold it.
I had a trial subscription to the Boulder paper when I first moved to CO, but it just didn't get read. Just like Greg's Wall Street Journal. Too easy to get the news online.
I might have to write a response to this over yonder. (I have been toying with writing about the same type of thing with public libraries vs Amazon.)
The reading of the news in formats other than the printed newspaper by more and more people does not alarm me as much as the implications of this, as you pointed out - that newspapers are less likely to have dedicated staff writers and more likely to scoop things off the AP. The LA Times went all to hell when the Chandlers sold it and I saw something recently (don't ask me where - I can never remember that stuff) that said they regretted that decision seeing how it has spiralled after they sold it.
Most of the solid, investigative journalism has been done by individual reporters or journalists. Within these individuals who have papers who say "Sure - go spend 3 months figuring out what exactly happened to that place in Tibet" (or whatever), many stories will go uninvestigated. This is not to say that the growing strength of bloggers is for naught - I think it fills a niche. But I don't think it completely would fill this gap.
I don't care how many other formats the news comes in, but if I can't scrunch it up in my hands while drinking Sunday coffee, what is there to wake up really?
I look forward to your rant on the Oregonian. :-)
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