Overboard by Chip Dunham for March 06, 2009
March 05, 2009
March 07, 2009
Transcript:
Charley: Aaaaaaand... There. Noise: WHAP!! Charley: Try doing that with the Internet. Captain: You're citing fly-killing as a reason for the importance of newspapers, Charley? Charley: Hey, secondary uses are important. You're housetraining a puppy. Are you gonna put laptops down on the floor?
Absolutely agree that we DO need newspapers. I am probably telling on myself here - but the little town where I lived did NOT get television until I was in high school - so there IS a generation out there which grew up with NO television. Even now - I tend NOT to watch stuff like the presidential debates on TV - I always USED to wait until the day after - and then read the text of what was said in the morning newspaper. Only, these days, there are fewer and fewer newspapers who would print the entire text of the debate. Of course, no one where I lived actually SAW the Nixon-Kennedy debates on TV - we read about it later - in the newspaper! I think people are missing a lot when they depend on stuff like television for their news! I absolutely adore the comics which P-I posts on the Internet. I thought Crock was lost to me forever - until I discovered the P-I. I thought P-I had a BETTER chance than the Rocky. A lot of people dropped the Rocky after the Rocky dumped all of their really GOOD comics! The Rocky ended up claiming that they were losing advertising revenue - but advertising revenue IS tied to circulation. The Rocky lost advertisers because the Rocky had ceased to be a newspaper which was in touch with what was going on in the State of Colorado. I supposed the news sound you will hear will be the Denver Post falling right behind the Rocky! People who were subscribing to the Rocky WERE Rocky subscribers because they did NOT like the Post - mainly because the Post abandoned reporting news about Colorado even earlier than the Rocky forgot how to cover Colorado news. The Post is going to be in for a RUDE awakening when they realize that the Rocky subscribers whom they inherited are not likely to stay on board for the Post. While we DO need newspapers - what newspapers have ALWAYS needed to rescue themselves from oblivion is to rediscover the kind of reporting which the newspapers did when they were thriving members of the community. Newspapers need to rediscover their OWN community - and go BACK to reporting on that community! Well - lots of luck. My first job was throwing in leads and slugs and writing the local news for my hometown newspaper. Which, by the way, is STILL flourishing - mainly because they stick to reporting the LOCAL news!