Ask Not For Whom the Bell Tolls

The mourning process has begun for an old friend. While not yet dead, very sick; residing in hospice at the very least. Decomposition has already started, it has been sick for quite some time. I will be sorry to see it go. It has been part of my life for so long; I don’t know how I’ll do without it. There will always be an empty void. The daily printed newspaper is going the way of the horse and carriage, and the steam locomotive. Our parting will be bittersweet.

Arthur Sulzberger, the owner, chairman, and publisher of the New York Times sounded the first death knell for printed newspapers. He declared at the economic forum in Davos, Switzerland that he doesn’t know, or care whether The Times will still be published five years from now. If the most respected paper in the industry is on the outs, all other dailys are in the same boat.

For those of you who haven’t notice the pandemic that has infected the newspaper industry, it has come in the form of the Internet. Our multitasking, shortened attention spans, over encumbered schedules no longer have the time nor room to read a newspaper. Christ! Many parents don’t have the time to raise their own kids –they leave that up to various school systems – where the hell are they going to fit in a newspaper? Hey! Why don’t parents read the paper to their kids? That way, parents get to spend some quality time with their children, while their children hone their reading and comprehension skills! Wouldn’t that be novel; which is similar to what a newspaper will one day be considered. A novelty.

Don’t get the impression that I long for the days of yesteryear; that I’m some sort of reactionary wanting to slow the wheels of progress. It’s just that there is something to holding a newspaper in your hands first thing in the morning. And recently this is where my troubles began. But I get ahead of myself.

Aside from One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish; I learned to read from the Sunday comics. I learned fiscal responsibility through the toil of collecting old newspapers in my Radio-Flyer from neighbors, then after loading into my father’s Ford Falcon wagon, we’d take them to Newark to be weighed. I think I got two cents a pound.

My vocabulary increased along with my interest and knowledge of current events thanks to Paul Hamlen my sixth grade teacher. He required us to subscribe, through the school, to the New York Times, the daily of such integrity, that it told its readers within its pages held “All the news that’s fit to print.” Jimmy Whitehead was once chastised for crossing out “print,” and instead wrote “vomit,” prompting Mr. Hamlen to shame him before the entire class.

As a kid, I delivered the Morris County Daily Record, an afternoon publication of the lowest order. The Newark Evening News had nothing to worry about. My memories of the Record go back to when it was still called the Morristown Daily Record. That was when clusters of suburban hamlets had printed representation. The families of Chester, Mendham, and Bernardsville; all had their own specific weekly editions of The Observer Tribune; where during Little League season, I would search for mention of my name if I had any on-field heroics that week.

As I got older, I gave up the paper route, and The Newark Evening News gave way to the Newark Star-Ledger, a morning paper. Dan Castellano, a writer who used to cover high school sports for The Daily Record, moved on to a more promising career with The Star-Ledger. With his move, I switched allegiance as well.

My parent’s subscribed for Ledger home delivery, and when I reached adulthood, I followed suit. Every now and again I’d read multiple papers. The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, and The New York Daily News all filled my idle hours. I came to learn that the last two papers mentioned were written on the third grade reading level, it was glaringly apparent, but mattered little due to their content. Some people even think the only thing those two papers are good for are house-breaking puppies. The Journal on the other hand, was written on the eleventh grade reading level; the highest of any daily publication.

Through The Post and The News, I became familiar with the work of Jimmy Breslin, Pete Hamill, Mike Lupica, and Dick Young. While I wasn’t very fond of any of the writings of those men, I found their columns to be immensely entertaining. It was through their editorials, and others as well; I learned that there were other viewpoints besides those of my parents or grandparents. I was sad to leave these people behind when I moved to Florida.

Down here, The Miami Herald and The Sun-Sentinel vie for readership. Ten years ago the Herald had a circulation of nearly three-hundred and fifty thousand; the Sun-Sentinel, almost two-sixty. Today the Sentinel is down to around two-sixteen, while the Herald has lost nearly one-hundred thousand readers. It doesn’t take an advanced degree to see what the future holds for these two publications.

Lately, I have seen layoffs at the Herald plant. I was told by a former employee that the reason for more typographical errors and poor grammar is the lack of editors the paper can no longer afford. Proofreading is done in India. Another job lost to outsourcing, and the end result is a lesser product.

My newspaper delivery person, due to decreased subscriptions, delivers both the Herald, and the Sun-Sentinel. Aside from the terrific 5:00AM conversation with Robert Joslyn my former route driver, the arrival time was the same until a couple of days ago. My guess is “Tiffany” succumbed to the American way of mediocrity.

The Herald set six-thirty weekdays, and seven-thirty weekends as the acceptable time limit for home delivery. Anytime after that you can the paper to voice your concerns if your paper has not arrived. Tiffany must have figured out the absolute latest time she needed to awaken to get the paper to her customers within the parameters set forth. However, all it took was a week of procrastination until Tiffany found herself breaching the time limit. Now, this may not seem like a big deal to most people, but to a man with definite OCD issues, the lateness of my paper screwed up my entire morning routine; hence my entire day was then out of whack.

What is the point of reading a morning paper in the afternoon, when due to budgetary constraints and shorter shifts, going to press, is now earlier than ever before? For all intents and purposes the news was two days old. I am curious though. If papers are hemorrhaging money, why give valuable column space to tabloid journalism, and idiots in an effort to sell more papers? Are those the folks a reputable paper really wants to cater to? No wonder they’re in deep shit. An example appeared not long ago.

The Herald, who’d already given space to a ghost written editorial by none other than that intellectual wellspring Sarah Palin (she couldn’t have written the piece, there were words with three syllables in it), gave a forum to a portion of a blog item commenting on a recent event.

The writer (a misnomer if there ever was one) castigated a bright, articulate young lady who was disciplined when she was in high school, for voicing her opinion on Facebook about a teacher she did not like. The ACLU took her case, citing free speech, and is suing the principal. The blog post suggested this student would be of better moral character if she would read the Bible, and listen to Sarah Palin speeches.

Now I’ve written several Letters to the Editor on a variety of subject matter. Not once did they even warrant a “Thank you for taking the time to write us” acknowledgment, though several days after my words appeared verbatim in a column written by sportswriter Kevin Baxter. I guess plagiarism and idiocy are acceptable forms of journalism.

If the papers are no longer to exist, so be it. I’ll get over having my morning paper; doing the crossword old-school with a pen (I never have used a pencil). I’ll get over not reading the Sunday comics while I lounge in the tub. I’ll just have to find my favorite columnists on-line. Yes, I’ll miss newspapers, but not in their current form.