Newspapers, Blogging, and Books in Glendale: A 2008 Reflection 2


Yahoo has Bookmarks, IE has Favorites, Chrome has a star along the menu bar. I keep hundreds of articles and websites through my internet service. More than 20 years ago, I took on a weekend job helping a retired teacher file important newspaper clippings. I don’t know where that file is now. What I do know is that none of those clippings were ever taken offline!

I recently began subscriptions to two print newspapers and yet another magazine because I wanted to track changes taking place in the print media. Newspapers have fewer pages, but the papers on my driveway (The Wall Street Journal and the LA Times) haven’t changed their focus since I last subscribed 10 years ago.

Three articles in my Paperweight section (where I keep clippings) discuss the great challenges to traditional news publishing. Paul Mulshine argues that the internet and blogs can’t match newspapers for depth of reporting and full-time commitment to tracking news for readings. Several comments back blamed the newspapers for biased reporting that turns readers away. Both sides have a point.

Angry journalists (who actually have a namesake blog: Angry Journalist) who prepared for a career covering the news were being laid off in record numbers this past year. Meanwhile, producing an issues-oriented blog for Glendale has taken time, attendance at meetings, coordination, and networking, with no paycheck to show for it.

Also underneath the Paperweight: two articles on the future of the book. Book sales plummeted in late 2008, and publishers are trimming staff and cutting back on production. The printed book, however, has the same advantage of the old file I created for the teacher – it exists as a physical object. Tom Engelhardt’s conclusion is

…more than 550 years after the first Gutenberg Bible appeared, the printed book, still an unsurpassed technology for delivering information and experience, isn’t leaving the scene soon.

The book remains a techno-wonder that not even the Kindle has surpassed. But it’s a wonder in a very crowded entertainment universe and a world plunging into the worst of times. The chain bookstore, the bloated publishing house and the specific corporate way of publishing that goes with them are indeed in peril. This may no longer be their time. As for the time of the book, it does seem to be shortening as well.

I appreciate Peggy Noonan’s more optimistic prediction: even in a crowded entertainment universe, readers will turn to books in the tough times ahead.

I am a news junkie and book lover disappointed by newspapers’ partisanship and bookstore chains’ push into more and more commercialized products. But I can’t give up print media, and I wish all the best to dedicated newsrooms and publishers, hoping they will survive as they change with the times.


2 thoughts on “Newspapers, Blogging, and Books in Glendale: A 2008 Reflection

  • editor Post author

    Yes, Phyllis, and this is not to mention the comfort we have gotten knowing that a group of people is out there checking what leaders tell us and looking into important issues for us. Citizens: stay alert, and support conscientious media.

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