Read it while you can
Someday soon, oldtimers may regale their grandkids about the good old days when there was a daily paper upon which many words were printed, one which arrived at the doorstep or nearby. Use of the past tense may be appropriate all too soon, I fear.
Fear because without newspapers, we’ll not have such handy access to numerous and often contrary notions that provide some balanced perspectives on the day’s happenings here and elsewhere. (Item: Both of Chicago’s major daily papers are in Chapter 11 bankruptcy.)
You may respond that TV and our marvelous PCs can run circles around what you can get in the paper. True. But odds are you self-select mostly the PC Web sites you enjoy and thus shut out less pleasant things that could give you a better sense of the real world.
Granted, I’m an older American who speaks only for himself and who understands there are lots of younger folks who seldom pick up, much less value newspapers at all. They increasingly want to watch, not read, except perhaps for text messages from friends.
And to tell the truth, my own PC’s blogs have become habit forming. I most likely spend more time at the computer than in reading my three daily papers and three magazines.
It’s also fascinating what Nicolas Kristof wrote in a recent New York Times piece: "[T]here’s pretty good evidence that we generally don’t truly want good information — but rather information that confirms our prejudices. We may believe intellectually in the clash of opinions, but in practice we like to embed ourselves in the reassuring womb of an echo chamber."
You can get plenty echo-chamber rants on the Internet, regardless of your political or social leanings. I prefer the more conservative Web sites. They nearly equal my 15 neutral, liberal and nonpolitical ones combined.
If, as a dedicated lover of newspapers, I can be swayed so much by the Internet (and certainly TV), it’s obvious many younger readers have given them up altogether. Thus it should be no surprise that newspapers most everywhere are cutting back and going under.
Kristof warns that the shift away from newspapers will “accelerate the rise of The Daily Me, and we’ll be irritated less by what we read and find our wisdom confirmed more often.”
He believes it lulls us into a “self-confident stupor through which we will perceive in blacks and whites a world that typically unfolds in grays.”
That’s a bit over the top, since my own “self-confident stupor” surely has been fueled quite well by 14 years of comfortable retirement. Indeed, folks 65 and older watch TV some 420 minutes a day, more than any other age group, while young adults record only 210 minutes a day, according to a Ball State University study.
The newspapers’ problems didn’t just start with the Internet, though. The peak in daily circulation came roughly in the late 1960s and early 1970s both in numbers and in percentages of the population, according to Ross Mackenzie, a veteran writer and editor for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
“Just as newspapers...never could figure out how to stanch the circulation hemorrhage, so they never could determine how to make...money on the Internet. In almost all cases they are giving their content away...Simply not enough people seem to care about local news and opinion to make many local news enterprises viable. It's a huge and compelling sadness.” Having been a paper boy on a bike and then an avid reader ever since, I agree.
He argues that the sense of community is bound to suffer with the decline of newspapers. If the decline continues, people will have to shift for themselves. Maybe they will come up with a handy substitute. Any suggestions?
Meanwhile, I must admit that the Internet has been a huge trove of information for the writer, at least for me. It’s where I found Kristof’s and Mackenzie’s ruminations about the press.
Although I have benefited, finding a print outlet in the future for writers could become increasingly difficult.
Well, boo-hoo. While I feel real sadness for the younger newspaper reporters, writers and editors, I won’t be around much longer in any event, despite my heroic efforts to deter the onset of a malady I can’t quite remember at the moment.
Oh yes, now I do. It’s called “age.”
Fear because without newspapers, we’ll not have such handy access to numerous and often contrary notions that provide some balanced perspectives on the day’s happenings here and elsewhere. (Item: Both of Chicago’s major daily papers are in Chapter 11 bankruptcy.)
You may respond that TV and our marvelous PCs can run circles around what you can get in the paper. True. But odds are you self-select mostly the PC Web sites you enjoy and thus shut out less pleasant things that could give you a better sense of the real world.
Granted, I’m an older American who speaks only for himself and who understands there are lots of younger folks who seldom pick up, much less value newspapers at all. They increasingly want to watch, not read, except perhaps for text messages from friends.
And to tell the truth, my own PC’s blogs have become habit forming. I most likely spend more time at the computer than in reading my three daily papers and three magazines.
It’s also fascinating what Nicolas Kristof wrote in a recent New York Times piece: "[T]here’s pretty good evidence that we generally don’t truly want good information — but rather information that confirms our prejudices. We may believe intellectually in the clash of opinions, but in practice we like to embed ourselves in the reassuring womb of an echo chamber."
You can get plenty echo-chamber rants on the Internet, regardless of your political or social leanings. I prefer the more conservative Web sites. They nearly equal my 15 neutral, liberal and nonpolitical ones combined.
If, as a dedicated lover of newspapers, I can be swayed so much by the Internet (and certainly TV), it’s obvious many younger readers have given them up altogether. Thus it should be no surprise that newspapers most everywhere are cutting back and going under.
Kristof warns that the shift away from newspapers will “accelerate the rise of The Daily Me, and we’ll be irritated less by what we read and find our wisdom confirmed more often.”
He believes it lulls us into a “self-confident stupor through which we will perceive in blacks and whites a world that typically unfolds in grays.”
That’s a bit over the top, since my own “self-confident stupor” surely has been fueled quite well by 14 years of comfortable retirement. Indeed, folks 65 and older watch TV some 420 minutes a day, more than any other age group, while young adults record only 210 minutes a day, according to a Ball State University study.
The newspapers’ problems didn’t just start with the Internet, though. The peak in daily circulation came roughly in the late 1960s and early 1970s both in numbers and in percentages of the population, according to Ross Mackenzie, a veteran writer and editor for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
“Just as newspapers...never could figure out how to stanch the circulation hemorrhage, so they never could determine how to make...money on the Internet. In almost all cases they are giving their content away...Simply not enough people seem to care about local news and opinion to make many local news enterprises viable. It's a huge and compelling sadness.” Having been a paper boy on a bike and then an avid reader ever since, I agree.
He argues that the sense of community is bound to suffer with the decline of newspapers. If the decline continues, people will have to shift for themselves. Maybe they will come up with a handy substitute. Any suggestions?
Meanwhile, I must admit that the Internet has been a huge trove of information for the writer, at least for me. It’s where I found Kristof’s and Mackenzie’s ruminations about the press.
Although I have benefited, finding a print outlet in the future for writers could become increasingly difficult.
Well, boo-hoo. While I feel real sadness for the younger newspaper reporters, writers and editors, I won’t be around much longer in any event, despite my heroic efforts to deter the onset of a malady I can’t quite remember at the moment.
Oh yes, now I do. It’s called “age.”
posted by Ben Blankenship at
6:25 PM
