Put the newspaper to bed

Yesterday I finally had an opportunity to sit down on the dock and get a little reading in.  I pulled the local newspaper out of my backpack and stretched out my legs and ... wait, what is that box on the front page?

What?  After 185 years the Argus Champion was throwing in the towel?  Quitting?  Losing money month after month, rising costs ... done, poof.  GONE.

It made me feel sick, it really did.  The publisher's note mentioned that the Internet was pulling away readers and I thought, really?  I love the Internet, but I love a newspaper.  I have newspaper in my blood -- is it really a dying breed?

So of course my mind begins to race and I think, well, this leaves a huge hole in this area, and maybe this is the time to step up and fill it.  And then I realized, no.  I have another plan now, another career move in the works, and this just only proves that I am truly no longer interested in investing my time and energies in a dying industry.

I don't believe that newspapers will go away altogether ... but they are caught up in this economy of correction.  For too long now newspapers have been whoring to the advertisers ... you will very rarely find anything but feel-good news stories on companies (or advertisers) that is just so much pap.  Blech.  I don't think that if it bleeds then it leads is the way either, but some hard core news would be so refreshing!  You can get that on the Internet now -- there are countless sites that are devoted to telling it like it is.  Not so much with newspapers.  Oh, there are a few columnists that have strong opinions, but everyone in the higher offices of mostly corporate-run newspapers only care about one thing:  Money.  And where does the money come from?  Advertising revenue.  So be nice to the advertisers.  And if they want to talk about how they started their company in a garage (gee, what a novel idea) instead of the fact that the CEO is a crook, then that is what you should write about.

Because otherwise they won't advertise.  Did I mention BLECH?

But the Argus Champion was a local newspaper full of local news -- nothing too major, but nonetheless interesting to those of us who live locally.  I believe that such newspapers do have a purpose and that is why I am so sad that it is fading into oblivion.