Remember Newspapers?
I was reading a true-crime book (surprise) today that mentioned a story breaking in the morning paper, then being updated in the evening paper. Remember morning and evening newspapers? Sometimes they were competitors; sometimes they merged. In Wilmington, Delaware, where I was living in the early ’80s, the Morning News and the Evening Journal eventually combined into the Wilmington News-Journal, which the local paper is still called today. They probably don’t have morning and evening editions anymore, but they sure were fun.
In the ’80s, before many people watched CNN and definitely before the Internet, the newspapers, combined with the 6 o’clock newscasts, were the news source for everyone. You would get the morning paper and read it over coffee; the evening paper was for some kid to deliver on his bike after school and for Dad to disappear behind at dinner, or if Mom intervened, afterward. If there was a big story, like the Kennedy assassination, they broke through the network shows, or you learned it from someone else by phone. News wasn’t instantaneous like it is now, and I sort of miss that.
We still take the Orange County Register, mostly because Ben likes the opinion page and their website blows chunks. (The L.A. Times, which is a well-known leftist rag, is out of the question.) But apart from that, we get all our news from the Internet and CNN. So why would we read the newspaper? It’s yesterday’s news, the stuff you read on the Internet the previous day.
The day Heath Ledger was found dead, Erika called me on my cellphone while I was driving. Heath Ledger’s dead, she reported. Quick, go on CNN. I wailed, I can’t! I’m in the car! I was going completely apeshit without access to instantaneous news. Finally I turned on the Los Angeles all-news A.M. radio station, KNX, and consoled myself with that. It was all I could get. But I will never forget that, the frustration at NOT HAVING IMMEDIATE NEWS, GODDAMMIT. The world has moved on since the days when you’d have just read it in the paper the next morning.
I miss coffee and the newspaper in the mornings. It was my daily ritual, as sacred as Mass. These days? I tumble out of bed, pull an espresso and sit down at the computer while the kids have their cereal. Not so sacred. But at least it’s immediate.
4 comments
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Paul says:
Not only do I remember newspapers but I worked at The Tampa Tribune for 12 years before being laid off this past September. The newspaper industry is flat-out dying. My 401k has some Media General stock. That’s the Tribune’s parent company. Three years ago it was riding at $70/share. Now I’m watching it drift toward $10.
But the news itself is still big business. People are always going to be interested in getting the news. It’s just that the very immediacy you’re seeing is what’s killing the newspaper’s business model.
Nowhere is that more apparent than in advertising. Classified ads used to be the cash cow of every newspaper in the country. These days, when you want to buy something or needed a job, you probably don’t even think to look in the newspaper. That stuff’s all online and because of it the financial legs of the newspaper industry are simply crumbling away.
Some of the big papers will likely survive. I’m sure the Los Angeles Times will be around for years. But the Wilmington News-Journal, the Orange County Register, and the Tampa Tribune will only be memories a decade from now…
Tuesday, July 15, 2008 3:48 pm
Gretchen says:
Oh Paul, it had totally slipped my mind you’d been with the Tampa Trib! Of course, I remember now. I’m sorry you personally took a hit — I have some friends in the mortgage banking industry, and I’m quite certain they know what all that’s like.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008 6:30 pm
Dana says:
Hey, I remember those days. I reload the Toronto Star about 10x a day to check for breaking news. CNN just isn’t my thing.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008 7:10 pm
Paul says:
It’s worked out pretty well, actually. Though it was certainly traumatic at the time, I’ve got a very salable skill and there were only three weeks between my last paycheck there and the first at my new job. Plus I got a nice compensation package from the Trib. The experience is keeping my skills sharp while I get all those certifications I’d never bothered with before. The pay is low, but it’s a good place with room to grow - plus there’s a wealth of other good jobs out there in my field. There’s actually a crying need for good Computer Analysts on the Help Desk phone - a job which I truly enjoy doing.
All in all, it’s been a GREAT thing!
Friday, July 18, 2008 2:06 pm