esrosedotblog

PAPER TIGER

I have taken a hard copy paper most of my life.

The term 'hard copy' should tell you where I am going with this.

When I was growing up it was the local Daily Record and the NY Daily News, the tabloid.

I don't remember Philadelphia. I guess the Inquirer.

In Plymouth, there were the locals and the Boston Globe.

In Boston, I read the alternative weeklies, the Globe and oddly, the NYTimes, well, just the Sunday.

When we moved to California, we took the local Desert Sun and the LA Times.

We quit the local when it became apparent that it was an undependable, innacurate and fitful reporter of the local news. It's national and world coverage would make you weep. And it was editorially republican.

I must admit that I still go on-line to the local for what is a weak but somewhat dependable coverage of local news. If you read between the lines.

That leaves the LA Times which I really like. I enjoy its features thoroughly and read it cover to cover every day.

But there have been some worries.

The Sunday section cut down the appearance of its very good magazine supplement to once a month.

A series of embattled editors came and went over the last three years. Newsroom morale plummeted.

Recently they have been doing some 'lipstick on a pig' kind of changes. A fashion supplement, another one that has to do with the 'awards' industry. Both are puff pieces meant to sell ads to local fashion and entertainment companies. Nothing there for me.

Now this:

Tribune Co. Plans Sharp Cutbacks at Papers

This is the new owner Sam Zell. A bastard if you ever saw one.

They said the company would aim for a 50-50 split between ads and news across all the news pages (excluding classified ads and advertising supplements). Mr. Michaels said this would mean eliminating 500 pages of news a week across all of the company’s 12 papers.

“If we take, for instance, The Los Angeles Times to a 50-50 ratio, we will be eliminating about 82 pages a week,” Mr. Michaels said, leaving the smallest papers of the week at 56 news pages.

82 pages of news a week.

That is a cut of about seven pages of news a day!

Well. That is close to the end.

I have been trying not to think about the fact that we pay over $600 a year to get the paper delivered every morning.

Now, I will start thinking about it very ruthlessly. Just like the bastard Zell.

It will be a tough decision to let it go.

But the fact is that I get almost all my news off the 'net anyway.

I take the NYTimes daily email summary and then go through the paper itself on line.

I read the AP feed all day long.

I am not missing the news at all. I am up to my ass in news.

What I have been looking for in the hard copy paper are the features.

I read several LA columnists regularly. I read some of the comics. Well, just one. Zits.

I read the film reviews.

All this would not be too bad if the LAT had a decent on-line edition but it doesn't and, besides, if they cut down 50 percent of the news that means the on-line edition also.

I am ready for the new age of media. But I am sad about it.

I don't see it as the end of the world. I really do believe that on-line is good. I don't think that the loss of newspapers is a catastrophe for the culture or the fall of civilization.

It is and has always been just a business. But a business that is a regular part of my/our lives. I will miss it.

But it isn't too bad.

I am near the end of the course. I have had a daily paper for almost 70 years of my life.

If I live to 90, that means I will only do without it for about 20% of my time on earth.

A hell of a lot less than the fucking 50% that bastard Sam Zell wants to cut the news pages.

Labels: media