This is a delicate story.It's about preparing to say goodbye to a dear old friend.
In a way it is also about saying hello to a new one.
This morning, at 4:22 AM I heard the familiar "thud"...
Of our newspaper hitting our front porch.
Our bedroom is close to our front door.
It is not an annoying sound.
It just wakes me up more often than not.
And almost just as often I am ready to get up.
The "Thud" used to be louder.
You see, the pages were of heavier weight.
The pages were also larger.
Finally, the paper was also thicker with news and, mostly ads.
With all those changes, the "thuds" have become quieter.
This is a crossroads in history when 150 year old papers...
Are closing their doors.
We are in transition to news on demand.
It's becoming instantaneous... with all the knee-jerk speculation and sensational wrong turns that might imply.
It's becoming the web.
It's Google that knows everything.
It's the Huffington Post.
The Wall Street Journal of Damn Fine Watch ads on-line...
And others of course.
A good two-thirds of the annual days here in Sacramento find us enjoying great morning weather.
On those days, and in anticipation, I grab that first cup of coffee, the ever thinning paper and dog Molly.
We all go outside where I enjoy the paper while the morning light turns brighter and Molly takes care of business.
This is the way it is supposed to be.
But my time on the patio is getting shorter.
Because there is less paper.
And there is less substance in the paper.
Less substance in the news and in the simple handling of the object.
It has become almost as delicate as tissue paper.
Susceptible to the slightest Delta breeze.
Difficult at times to manipulate.
On the other hand,
This gets me back into the home office quicker.
And on the Internet to catch up on all the morning emails.
And Facebook, and MySpace, and my Blogs,
And on-line news articles that are so fresh... printed papers cannot possibly keep up.
I am having great fun with it all, but I am taking in less glory in the morning.
Does that make sense?
2 comments:
Hi Tom,
We miss our local paper, too. It's become slimmer and slimmer with more white space between lines, and full page ads and huge photographs in place of text. It's becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, the death of the news, as we knew it. Online viewing is not the same as turning pages, and reading feature articles and "hard news" written by skilled reporters. A computer screen doesn't go well with a front porch, a back patio, or the kitchen table, and a cup of coffee.
Thank you for your comment Annie! Now I am going to head out for that morning cup and wrestle with the fragile news of the day for a little while. Yes, I will confess that lately I am hitting the computer even before I get to the paper. Must have a little turncoat in me!
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