I don't know what to do about the terminal illness that's plaguing the newspaper industry any more than you do. I do know that blogging is not reporting (I do both), that reading news online is not the same as holding a paper in my hands (ditto), and that, as one of those lamenting the death this past week of the Rocky Mountain News (link is to the "I want my Rocky" site) interviewed in this video says, "You won't miss it til it's gone."
Today's Boston Globe is bigger than The New York Times, but not by much, and they're both owned by the same company. We need reporters. We need editors. And we need to be able to tuck a folded bit of newsprint under our arms, open it on the subway, under a tree, spread it flat on a table next to a cup of coffee, and, yes, clip pieces that we really like, let them curl and yellow in folders that our grandchildren will have to throw away.
As I mentioned recently, I helped my brother on his paper route, wrote my first article for The Pottstown Mercury with my classmates in first grade, visited pulp plants with my father when I was very small (not mentioned, he once owned a junkyard), got my first job as a reporter (at The Merc) when I was sixteen (t.g. my mother clipped many of my articles because that paper's morgue is probably on death row itself), was editorial page editor of my high school paper (now called Curious George, clever), was managing editor of my college paper, the Antioch Record (in the ICU itself but for different reasons), set type by hand at the Yellow Springs News, have framed copies of articles I wrote for the Globe and the NY Times (that one with Jeff) on my study's walls, and am in tears just writing this because newspapers are in my heart, in my soul, and because I'm ridiculously sentimental, i.e. see Nicholas Carlson's post in the Silicon Alley Insider, "Printing the NYT Costs Twice As Much As Sending Every Subscriber A Free Kindle," for the dollars and cents (but not sense) of it.
Someone joked that there is no bailout for the newspaper industry. It's not a joke. Surely we're collectively smart enough to figure this out.
Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.
the Rocky Mountain News published its final edition on February 27, 2009.
