I know I was not your typical teenager. Somehow, I developed a love of the Sunday newspaper, especially the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times. But it didn’t really matter, as long as it was a paper not from my hometown of Detroit. As Joe Jackson, one of my favorite singers during that time in my life, sang in the song “Sunday Papers” from the album Look Sharp in 1979,
But every weekend through the door
Come words of wisdom from the world outside
Every Sunday, I would spend two – three hours reading the news of the world, dreaming of a life outside the city I was currently living in.
Over the last month, I have begun noticing a change in my Sunday paper. It has become a shadow of itself, becoming thinner, with fewer features. With the challenges to the publishing world, it has become less relavant in my life. The section of ads, which was a major revenue source, is now larger in height than the rest of the other sections when stacked side by side. The sad thing is that they have raised the price for what is beoming an inferior product.
The current newspaper that I subscribe to, the Chicago Tribune, has now become a portal to the electronic world. The editors want to push me to more detail on their website, to the blogs of the columists. They have become part of the citizen journalism that has emerged. It is as the Jam (another favorite band of mine), sung in 1978, in “News of the World”:
Little men tapping things out – points of view
Remember their views are not the gospel truth
Don’t believe it all
Find out for yourself
Check before you spread
News of the world
Don’t take it too serious – not many do
Read between the lines and you’ll find the truth
Read all about it, read all about it – news of the world
Call me old fashioned, but I am missing the old fashioned thrill I used to get reading the paper.
Sorry Vinny–I am probably perpetuating the problem as I LOVE getting my news delivered in my reader. I also love the Sunday Papers, but its a fading romance, as I now favor my reader instead. Even now when I read the paper that lays on the doorstep each weekend, I find it difficult to find news I haven’t already read. My reader is filled with large papers from all around too so I am getting a local, national and even international view. JUst as telephone booths and payphones have almost become obsoltel, I think print papers see the writing on the wall too.
Cathy, I too am perpetuating the problem. I also use my rss and twitter feeds and am more informed than I have ever been. However, like that love from a long time ago, the romance of reading the Sunday paper on a frigid Sunday at home with the smell of my wife’s homemade biscuits or muffins or taking the paper to the beach on a beautiful Sunday morning is something that I still love, but the paper keeps getting smaller and less significant.