Bailouts for dying newspapers coming to our theater soon?

Posted on January 2, 2009 by Uppity Woman

 Behold and beware of the precedent.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Connecticut lawmaker Frank Nicastro sees saving the local newspaper as his duty. But others think he and his colleagues are setting a worrisome precedent for government involvement in the U.S. press.

Nicastro represents Connecticut’s 79th assembly district, which includes Bristol, a city of about 61,000 people outside Hartford, the state capital. Its paper, The Bristol Press, may fold within days, along with The Herald in nearby New Britain.

483581ca-00054-054fc-400cb8e1So, I’ll bet you can guess what’s coming next.

Nicastro and fellow legislators want the papers to survive, and petitioned the state government to do something about it. “The media is a vitally important part of America,” he said, particularly local papers that cover news ignored by big papers and television and radio stations.

Raise your hand if you don’t think the dying New York Times isn’t watching this story closely. Anybody?

Of course there are ethical issues associated with this kind of bailout too. Not that this would bother an outlet like the New York Times. They’re experienced at being in the tank.

“You can’t expect a watchdog to bite the hand that feeds it,” he said.

Oh Goodie.  Pravda.  Not that we haven’t already noticed it happening without bailouts.

The thing is the “watchdogs” in print are no longer really very useful. Which is why they are dying. For starters, you can get more news off the internet. We are no longer restricted to what newspapers want us to see, which if often based on their own political ideology. Secondly, the literacy rate in America isn’t exactly on an upswing. But that won’t stop them from sticking their thieving hands into the taxpayers’ pockets.

Hopefully, the people of Connecticut will have more guts than the rest of America and put a stop to this precedent before it hits the ground running. On the other hand, if Mr. Nicastro succeeds in getting bailout money for this news organization, you can be he can count on great press for life, no matter what he does.

Filed under: Bailout Party, Miscellaneous Government Stupidity

« »

42 Responses

  1. Star, on January 2nd, 2009 at 10:31 AM Said:

    Aww…one of my three driveway papers has two days to go…I have been lamenting and tearing my clothes in grief. I am a newspaper person…you have to be one to get how horrible this newspaper thing is. I guess they have a dying business model, but my God, without something central to key off of, where will the blogs be, the cable shows (“real” reporters are their mainstay now)? NPR is govt funded and didn’t do what Bush wanted. I guess a newspaper funded by the largesse dy Junior would favor him… Anyhow, I am bereft!

  3. Mary Ellen, on January 2nd, 2009 at 10:39 AM Said:

    My daughter is a reporter for a small newspaper in New Hampshire. It is a family run business which has been in existence for many generations. They are going under fast and after reading this, I wonder if they will do the same thing…go to the government for help. Unfortunately for my daughter, working as a journalist is a tough business. Her major in college was Journalism/Magazine Print and she also has a degree in Political Science. But like you said, the print news is becoming a dinosaur and jobs are tough to get now.

    I live in the Chicago area and get the Tribune delivered. Since the new owners took over, the paper is barely recognizable anymore. They often use blogs like Huffington Post as their news source and there is more gossip and propaganda than news. Except for the columnist, John Kass, the paper is worthy only of being used as a liner for a bird cage. Even John Kass has been cut to having his column in the paper three times a week.

    I’m not sure if there is such a thing as free press anymore, which is evident in the news that was written about Obama’s choice of Arne as Education Secretary. If you notice, every news source that wrote about that appointment had written the story with almost the exact same information…word for word. They took an Obama press release and regurgitated it into their story. That’s the new “news” today, propaganda.

  4. imustprotest, on January 2nd, 2009 at 10:56 AM Said:

    What’s with all the bailouts? Whatever happened to BUYouts?? Or is that sooo 1980s? Local or regional press is important, in fact I think it was a local TV station in FL that dared to ask a hardball question of Joe Biden (Barbara West?) but the government should not be involved.

  5. foxyladi14, on January 2nd, 2009 at 11:46 AM Said:

    we the people..remember us..the workers.the tax payers..
    when will we get bailed out???????????????

  6. foxyladi14, on January 2nd, 2009 at 11:46 AM Said:

    oh.noooooooooooo……………..

  7. Irlandese, on January 2nd, 2009 at 12:20 PM Said:

    Well there goes Amendment #1….after the full-out assault on #2 and Barky’s famous FISA flip-flop on #4. What’s next? Seems to me the only qualifications that BO has for POTUS, or any other so-called “constitutional attorney” holding office in DC, is understanding how to undermine the Constitution, not uphold it. Bi-partisanship at its best……..Lordisa. On my dime.

  8. Uppity Woman, on January 2nd, 2009 at 12:45 PM Said:

    Mary Ellen, you’re in Chicago? What do real people in chicago think of their politicians?

  9. Grail Guardian, on January 2nd, 2009 at 1:21 PM Said:

    Sorry, but just like the auto industry, if the press is dying, it’s because they haven’t bothered to offer what people really want. If newspapers had bothered (after the boom of the internet) to start doing in-depth, investigative reporting then they might not be in such trouble. The problem is, most small newspapers rely on what’s in the big newspapers and most big newspapers just regurgiate what’s pushed out on the wire services (AP, Reuters, etc.) rather than bother with any actual reporting.

    I have no sympathy for industries that didn’t bother to get with the times”, and I certainly cannot condone (or even entertain) bailing them out! I live in a city that’s largest employers for decades were Eastman Kodak and Xerox. For years, both havebeen chipped away at, getting smaller and smaller, laying off tens of thousands of workers. Xerox is still trying to make a run at it, but Kodak is struggling in it’s death throes. Where has the government handout bailout been for our struggling population? Nowhere. Yet every single one of us uses devices on a daily basis that were created and made mainstream by these 2 companies. No one gave a crap 10 or 20 years ago when these companies started to fail, and no one gives a crap now, either. Perhaps we should send Ann Mulcahy and Antonio Perez on a private jet to DC to beg for free money, too!

  10. Mary Ellen, on January 2nd, 2009 at 1:58 PM Said:

    Uppity-

    Hell, anyone who has lived in Chicago for any length of time knows that all seats are “bought” and paid for. That’s what drove me crazy during the Primary campaign. Obama never would have gotten where he is without the dirty politicians . I wrote a post for The Divine Democrat and No Quarter about the Chicago Machine. It was Senator Emil Jones who was the one who decided to make Obama a US Senator. He was the one who said to Cliff Kelley, a former Chicago alderman who is now the host of Chicago’s most popular black call-in radio ­program,

    “Cliff, I’m gonna make me a U.S. Senator.”

    “Oh, you are? Who might that be?”

    “Barack Obama.”

    Jones was the one who padded Obama’s resume by putting his name on legislation that he had nothing to do with. He got the credit for the work that other legislators did. That’s the way Obama got where he is today, in the dirty politics of the Chicago Machine. He didn’t work for it…he was “created”.

    None of this is a surprise to Chicagoans, which is why, IMO, so many of them look the other way when it comes to Obama’s lies and corrupt ties. Now, it’s going to be dirty machine politics national style. If anyone thinks Washington was bad before…get ready, they are about to be baptized with the cesspool of Chicago dirty politics.

    Frankly, I was surprised that Blagojevich hasn’t started naming names yet…and he will. He knows everything about everyone, he learned from Daily. Although, if I were Blago, I’d be watching my back and not starting any cars up without checking under the hood first.

  11. Grail Guardian, on January 2nd, 2009 at 2:18 PM Said:

    Mary Ellen,

    That’s the beauty of it – Blago knows all the tricks, because he’s used them all himself! I’d bet he has a pretty solid plan for forcing Obama to let him off the hook or getting immunity from Fitzpatrick for singing loud and clear.

    The only problem is, scenario #1 is the most likely. He’ll probably be pardoned by Obama on Jan. 21st.

    I think I’d be careful if i were Harry Reid these days. He forced Obama to come out against Burris, and he isn’t a Chicago playa, so perhaps a remote starter might be in order for Mr. Majority loser Leader.

  12. Joe, on January 2nd, 2009 at 2:59 PM Said:

    There has been a lot of confusion surrounding this “bailout” of the Bristol Press and the New Britain Herald. . .just to clarify, state lawmakers and the CT Dept. of Economic Development are searching for buyers of these papers, and were reportedly in talks with several companies/individuals in recent days. The papers are NOT seeking financial bailouts from the state. Legislators and other economic development officials are simply serving as a conduit to keep these papers alive.

  13. Star, on January 2nd, 2009 at 3:03 PM Said:

    A free press is one “leg” of our culture, the Fourth Estate and so on. You get so much from a paper newspaper you don’t get online–you see things you didn’t even know you needed to know. It’s portable, nonscrubbable, takes a capital investment, etc. Craigs ruined the newspaper revenue base with its free ads. It also ruined my business of writing, which is how I have supported my fam for almost 30 years, by globalizing writers and offering a hundredth or even five hundredth of what we used to get. We also can’t write for papers anymore because they are disappearing. And mags… I give a giant crap! Well, you know what I mean…

  14. Uppity Woman, on January 2nd, 2009 at 3:38 PM Said:

    Gee Mary Ellen, why does that not surprise me. I kind of figured that Jones or Jesse Jr was on deck for Barack’s job.

    Yeah Blago should really worry about accidentally falling in the river after having tied a couple of bricks to his own feet.

  15. Uppity Woman, on January 2nd, 2009 at 3:56 PM Said:

    Whatever, Joe. Governments shouldn’t be in the business of keeping failing businesses alive. If a newspaper can’t run itself it deserves to go down just like any other taxpayer’s business. Newspapers are going down the tubes all over America. That’s because most of them are crap and then there’s that little problem of the internet, not to mention people don’t care to read any longer. The handwriting is on the wall. Do I think it’s a travesty? No, not really, considering newspapers have become tools used by their publishersand “editorial boards” to pimp their preferences. That includes local. I don’t read my local paper any longer. I check online for obituaries. They are a right wing rag that does no investigative reporting and spews out press releases from politicians they favor. The publisher is religious zealot and people got pretty much sick and tired of constantly reading spreads on saints and relics and Bible stories. Newspapers have long ago lost their credibility as “objective” investigators of anything. The only reason most people still buy them is for the coupons on Sunday.

  16. noemptysuits, on January 2nd, 2009 at 4:03 PM Said:

    Precisely. Well put, UW.
    Newspapers must be independent of the government, not wards thereof. Otherwise, they’re good for little else than wrapping fish and toilet paper. And, there’re no shortages in either fish wrappers or toilet paper. Yet, anyway.

    P.S.: Uppity, I’m been dying to see you host an Obama in Hawaii photo montage critique for the peanut gallery. I know it’s low art, and all, but, hey, we’re not above such things….

  17. Uppity Woman, on January 2nd, 2009 at 4:53 PM Said:

    Hmmmmmmmm. I already have a stash of shots of him with his nips appearing…….um……..cold.

  18. noemptysuits, on January 2nd, 2009 at 4:59 PM Said:

    Go for it, my dear.

  19. Joe, on January 2nd, 2009 at 5:07 PM Said:

    OK, I agree that the standards at a lot of papers have gone WAY down in recent years, but I’m curious about a comment you made in your post: “For starters, you can get more news off the internet.”
    Where do you think most of the Internet’s news is coming from? Newspapers are still the best source for good journalism in this country, even if the quality has declined as of late.
    Are you implying that bloggers are going to provide all the information that’s needed about your government, your schools and just about any other field of interest that’s out there? Guess where bloggers get most (if not all) of their material from: newspapers staffed by experienced journalists.
    I guess this means that when newspapers die, all the bloggers in those communities are going to pick up the baton and spend 60-70 hours a week covering City Hall to serve their readers. I seriously doubt it.
    You’re right, newspapers were slow to change with the times and clinged to a lousy business model. But good riddance? No way. We’ll be worse off without these watchdogs in any community, big or small.
    P.S. Thanks for listening, even if we don’t agree.

  20. Uppity Woman, on January 2nd, 2009 at 6:01 PM Said:

    No I wasn’t implying that bloggers have the news. I don’t get news from bloggers, except in the case of those bloggers who use source links for stories. You might laugh but I oftenI go to the UK to get news I can’t read here in newspapers or see on TV.. I go to Reuters too. Granted, the media get their news from the same outlets –but newspapers only COVER what they want to cover,and frankly, the NY Times not only covers what it wants but covers it with obvious slant. I cancelled them long ago. They are in financial trouble too and I hope to hell they sink. But local papers are no different. It’s just a matter of scale.

    I’m sorry to sound cranky, but I can tell you from true experience that newspapers are politics pure and simple. They will turn their backs on important stories if they don’t suit their agenda. They even use headlines to twist content. It’s all a game and it’s a game that we don’t need to play any longer because it is shaping people with untruths, half-truths and sins of omissions.

    Some of these newspapers owned by conglomerates, like Gannett, are the worst of the lot, because they don’t give a rat’s butt what the locals print so long as they wire the advertising money at the end of the week. That leaves local papers with plenty of free time to shove their own politics at people and bury stories that don’t suit. Often they make the news rather than cover it. Believe me I saw it happen in my own city.. After all, they own the ink. There’s a book about Gannett specifically, written in the late 90s. The Chain Gang. I think the author was Kent McCord. After reading that, I gave up on newspapers for news back then. Since then it’s gotten worse because one guy can own a whole bunch of news outlets now and muddy up the waters using all kinds of different media. So, yeah, the internet is a better deal all the way around, once you sort opinion from coverage. Allowing a couple of clowns to buy up entire media markets was a huge mistake for the American public. A huge mistake. One more case of “deregulation” that benefits no one but a couple of fat cats. I wish I had that link to the polls on media. Newspapers are the bottom of the pile now. I don’t know whether it’s as you say, their inability to change with the rest of the world, or if it’s just low quality and mediocre news coverage. One thing is for sure, there is very little investigative reporting happening in any kind of TIMELY way.

    Many newspapers are in trouble. They are in trouble because their readership is getting smaller and smaller. Instead of looking at governments to keep them afloat they need to ask themselves why nobody wants to wrap their fish in them any longer.

  21. FembotsForObama, on January 2nd, 2009 at 6:12 PM Said:

    Dead right about the newspapers, they are failing because of their own hubris and stupid reliance upon other big media suppliers.
    One of the reasons I stopped reading too is because of the LTEs, you can’t submit anonymous ones any more; must have a real name and address because although they don’t do any other fact checking, our local sure makes sure that no phony person is able to comment in an editorial letter!

    My hubby gets it still but that’s because of the sports pages, comics, and crossword puzzle.

  22. FembotsForObama, on January 2nd, 2009 at 6:18 PM Said:

    UW- you are totally right about the media conglomerates, and Gannet being the worst offender. It’s happened here in Wisconsin. Gannet owns the newspaper, a TV station, and the only radio talk station. Isn’t the Chicago Trib and the LA Times both owned by the same people?

  23. deadenders, on January 2nd, 2009 at 6:35 PM Said:

    Papers are failing because of lack of ad revenue and nothing else. You can buy a full page ad in the A section of the Sun Sentinel for 2 grand or less. It used to cost 10-30 grand for the same ad space. It’s a dying media, if they can’t get people to advertise they go bankrupt plain and simple.

  24. imustprotest, on January 2nd, 2009 at 6:48 PM Said:

    Fembots, yes the LA Times is owned by the Tribune Media Company. And I think Tribune recently filed for bankruptcy. They own a lot of media outlets including a local TV station KTLA.

    The LA Times has become a rag IMO. The paper broke an almost 40 year tradition of not endorsing presidential candidates with its endorsement of…..you guessed it……Barry Obamasoretoro.

  25. Uppity Woman, on January 2nd, 2009 at 7:10 PM Said:

    DE the reason they get less advertising is because the advertisers know that readership is in the crapper, so why bother targeting a small audience for that kind of money.

  26. Coupons? You Want Coupons?, on January 2nd, 2009 at 8:04 PM Said:

    http://print.coupons.com/CouponWeb/Offers.aspx?pid=13306&zid=iq37&nid=10

    You do NOT even need to buy any Sunday papers with the Internet.

    That is just one site for getting coupons on the Internet.

    Personally, I have NOT BOUGHT a single newspaper of any sort at all for the whole past 3 years now!

    Paper R.I.P.

  27. Coupons? You Want Coupons?, on January 2nd, 2009 at 8:20 PM Said:

    http://print.coupons.com/CouponWeb/Offers.aspx?pid=13306&zid=iq37&nid=10

    You do NOT even need to buy any Sunday papers with the Internet.

    That is just one site for getting coupons on the Internet.

    Paper R.I.P.

  28. Coupons? You Want Coupons?, on January 2nd, 2009 at 8:54 PM Said:

    Oops! Sorry. Something on the system just isn’t working right.

    Maybe all those FISA taps……..

  29. thetownecrier, on January 3rd, 2009 at 3:39 AM Said:

    Yup, the local paper is quite in decline. Favoritism and politics play heavily. Especially problematic when it’s a one horse town. Too much fluff. Not enough objectivity or investigative material. Editorials heavily skewed. The slants is ridiculous at times. So it turns out that the wire news becomes the most credible. Sad. Do not know how this can be solved.

  30. Grail Guardian, on January 3rd, 2009 at 7:41 AM Said:

    Yeah, but look at how the AP acted this year. They reported Senator Clinton conceded while there were still people voting, for crying out loud! The wires are not the answer, either, until they get the message that they must report the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

    If we actually knew the truth about all these politicians and the economy, things would be quite different right now, and Sarah Palin would probably be President-Elect (because most of the rest of them would’ve been in jail years ago).

    We’re so freakin’ inundated by the stories they want us to hear that we truly don’t know up from down anymore – even many of us that have started watching closely.

  31. Star, on January 3rd, 2009 at 10:57 AM Said:

    You’re right, newspapers were slow to change with the times and clinged to a lousy business model. But good riddance? No way. We’ll be worse off without these watchdogs in any community, big or small.
    P.S. Thanks for listening, even if we don’t agree.

    I am with you–newspapers always had a bias–they “endorsed” candidates…Just bec the NYT is smooching Junior’s tippytoes, along with MSNBC, Obamaweek, etc, doesn’t mean newspapers don’t have a role. You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone–and this is going to be bad. I am not curling up with my screen after feeding the cats and making coffee. The screen comes later. I have seen my own profession go in the tank without a backward glance from the twitter set. I see Nat Henthoff got laid off from the Voice.

  32. Star, on January 3rd, 2009 at 10:58 AM Said:

    Where do you get those obits–if there is no “record” observed anymore–www.BummerDude.com?

  33. Grail Guardian, on January 3rd, 2009 at 12:38 PM Said:

    Cute, but it ignores the point – why should we be expected to support anything that hasn’t kept up with the times? You wouldn’t be looking at a GUI interface (Windows and MAC both use it to give you something more flexible than just bright green text scrolling across the monitor) or using a mouse if it wasn’t for Xerox – they invented both. But I’d bet you big bucks that virtually every single person responsible for those inventions has been laid off in the “what have you done for me lately?” world, and no one gave them a bailout. When the Japanese started beating the crap out of Xerox, America collectively said, “too bad, too sad – we’re still buying cheap overseas goods”. I can’t even estimate how many tens of thousands of workers were let go across the country as they tried to reconfigure and learn how to compete. But no one has been there saying a word year after year as their retirees health care is cut back.

    My point is this: what makes the auto industry, newspapers, or state governments any better than Xerox? What makes UAW retirees any better than former Xeroids? If you can’t cut it, then you take your losses and go home. Xerox had to learn fast & furious, but they’re doing ok again (thanks to the leadership of a woman, nonetheless) because they did what Americans all need to do: they improved what they do and offered a product of value!

    Want to keep newspapers? Fine! Make them have some more value than friggin’ comics, coupons, and obituaries! I can get all those somewhere else, easier and cheaper! Give me something I can’t get on line or on TV or the radio: give me some NEWS! The internet and bloggers can’t do the in-depth, investigative stuff, and the lazy press won’t! They have no one to blame but themselves, and neither will we if we don’t stop this blank check writing!

    You need to get it here folks! We’re going away as a country because we aren’t saying no to anyone with their hand out! Don’t tell me Capitalism is to blame – we haven’t tried it yet! You can’t have Capitalism with restrictions, bailouts, or paying people for what they didn’t earn! Socialism is to blame, because each and every time we dip into the Treasury’s printing presses, we move farther and farther towards the point of no return. Entitlement has to end now.

  34. Star, on January 3rd, 2009 at 2:33 PM Said:

    You will get news if someone can be enticed to spend $90K or so a reporter to get it. Apparently, they can’t. I am not going to the BBC to get my “news,” which is also skewed. This commerical Darwinism stuff is happening awful fast–cut iy or die–in a month or two months. I read three (now two) papers, a dozen blogs, three papers online, this, that, and then a picture emerges. But I start with paper papers!

  35. deadenders, on January 3rd, 2009 at 3:47 PM Said:

    UW readership AKA circulation has been a urban myth for years. The papers give away issues en mass and every paper in a coin box is counted as circulation. Those numbers are easily manipulated.

  36. Coupe de Groucho, on January 3rd, 2009 at 6:57 PM Said:

    Thanks for that Deadenders.

    I’m glad to learn that fact.

    Figures don’t lie, but Liars figure.

  37. deadenders, on January 3rd, 2009 at 7:18 PM Said:

    Things are so bad for their industry they have started to endrun ad agency’s ad go hard after clients directly. We got into a big shouting match with our local paper the Sun Sentinel. Their art dept went directly to one of our clients that we were designing a full page or two per month, to run in that paper. Told our client they would give them a better rate that they were giving us even before we marked it up. They also threw in designing the ads for FREE. As they put it, the design is not free it’s just included in the ad fee. Guess what our client did? As always money of quality.

  38. Star, on January 4th, 2009 at 12:12 PM Said:

    Personally, I have NOT BOUGHT a single newspaper of any sort at all for the whole past 3 years now!

    Paper R.I.P.

    I may be wrong, but all the people here saying “WhatEV,” are probably not lifelong subscribers in the tradition of newspaper readers. And when you say things like the above, it makes me mad–you are cavalierly kissing off my beloved thing, just like people who say, “I haven’t done anything wrong, so you can listen in on me as much as you want.” Both things carry societal implications, where the majority hurt the minority. My one Phoenix paper tossed the last issue this morning and the Arizona Republic announced “changes.” Shortening, little pamphlet seections, sections folded into other sections. I am sick at heart.

  39. Star, on January 4th, 2009 at 12:14 PM Said:

    How will you feel when someone decides free blog sites aren’t cutting it anymore? Or that all free sites could be pre-aproved by someone? These little sea changes can start affecting the God Internet, too.

  40. Star, on January 4th, 2009 at 12:17 PM Said:

    Want to keep newspapers? Fine! Make them have some more value than friggin’ comics, coupons, and obituaries! I can get all those somewhere else, easier and cheaper!

    Where? Go to sep sites for coupons? Obits? How about stuff you don’t even know you want until you see it? The worst part about this newspaper thing is that there will be no center if this proceeds. The center will not have held. All blogs, sites, etc branch from traditional sources. How could we have had the discussion we had about the election if we hadn’t seen biased coverage and then used our new internet technology to dissect it? I like this site, I like Newsbusters, and a number of others–but it is the combination of them all that is key to my forming opinions.

  41. Uppity Woman, on January 4th, 2009 at 1:42 PM Said:

    Star, I most certainly WAS a lifelong newspaper subscriber. I cancelled my local paper when I had to sit by and watch them flat out lie about a condition in my city and county that I was thoroughly aware of. They were so entrenched in politics, their editorial page became the same as their news page. Why? Because it politically benefited them. Later, a few years down the road, that which they helped to cover up blew up in the taxpayers’ faces. Then they jumped on board as if nobody should remember what bald face, lying sacks of shit they were all along. In short, they were the most to blame for the problem. I cancelled that filthy NY Times when I realized that the only reason they are there is to try to resuscitate Karl Marx. newspapers are propaganda machines, lorded over by the people who own the ink.

    DE, nobody is going to be “approving” blogs. What has turned blogs is money and self-advancement. When bigs shots paay a blogger enough, they will believe in anything, it seems. Mostly, the websites that are supported by readers, not politicians, are the only honest ones left. I watched a particular popular web site, whose name we all know, go deservedly down the crapper in readership when it became abundantly clear that a sudden 180 degree turn was for the benefit of the future of the site owner and nothing more.

    Obits? That’s easy. Have county clerks post the vital statistics online daily. I have watched my local newspaper shamelessly rip people off and take advantage of families of dead people by charging astronomical fees for obituaries. these people are truly vile. I had already made up my mind that if I were to die, I wanted my Obit to post nothing but a phone number to call for funeral details. Just for spite.

  42. Star, on January 4th, 2009 at 2:35 PM Said:

    I guess I disagree on this…My sister and I have discussed what we will write about Mom and who will do ours. In our paper, you only pay a large amt for a longer, sort of bio type obit. Attention must be paid. I am not counting on anyone to check with the Death Stats dept every so often to see if I am around.

    I will miss my Parade. I will miss my coupon books–I have gone online to get my eye medicine coups but won’t bother to scrap around online for others. My time bills at $100 an hour–it was worth it to me to have a newspaper bring this together. My entertainment news (which I love), politics of course, international (my collitch major), horoscope (short and just for fun and instantly forgettable not long like online), people do crosswords (I don’t), Sudoku (nah), local news (the city councilman owns the restaurant where we eat every Sat–we keep up with him or used to, movies (yes, Moviefone, but the reviews were always entertaining and right there to read. A newspaper is a unique vessel–way more than the sum of its parts. Once these are dismantled–there is no going back until these Obama idiots really do take over with their data mining, their google search skewing, their trolls, etc. and we have to drag out the underground presses and start over.

    Oh, well–I have said my piece.

    If you did die, I would sure want to know more about you–but I wouldn’t know it was you…

Leave a Reply