As if I didn't have enough grief in my life in the past few weeks, here was a scene that elicited more tears: As I sat at a Carrow's restaurant in Upland waiting for my truck to be serviced, I sipped a cup of coffee and watched these guys take down two newspaper boxes and haul them away. I took these photos through the window--and through actual tears.
If you're thinking right now, "I get my news online anyway," please know that you should never say those words aloud to me unless you want to be subjected to a line of loaded Socratic questioning that begins with "What's the difference between a news story offered online and one offered in a print newspaper?" Do your homework first. Be prepared to answer.
If you'd like a hint, here's one: Space.
The average online story has a word count in the hundreds--a couple paragraphs, maybe. The average word count in a print newspaper runs into the thousands. Why is that important? Because you get the whole story, including all the salient details, not just a brief summary of what happened.
Here's another hint: Sources
Exactly how are those news stories coming to us online? When you click on a "trending" story, where does that take you? To a reputable news source that you trust? Or to a page with multiple graphics and pop-ups so you can read two paragraphs about a possible Yeti sighting while being barraged with advertisements? So is the point of that story to inform the public? Or to sell anti-wrinkle cream?
And speaking of graphics: I've had folks tell me they like to read their news online so they can "see pictures and video." Oh lord help us, really? I'm pretty sure I can read an article about the need for further gun control legislation without having to watch terrified teenagers running from classrooms yet again.
Sigh. Journalism as it is presented online is not the same as Journalism which is crafted for long-established and reputable print media outlets, and any journalist worth her salt will tell you the same. Ask one... if you can find one. Most local newspapers have narrowed their staffs from hundreds to handfuls, and those few over-worked individuals have little patience to discuss the merits of brief news versus complete news.
Yeah, it's clear; I feel pretty strongly about this. In my file cabinet I have copies of front page news stories--from the day Barack Obama was elected President... from September 11, 2001... from that day in 1968 when Robert Kennedy was assassinated. I was only 14. But I knew that story was important. So I kept the newspaper from that day. Sometimes I imagine my grandchildren telling their kids, long after I am dead, about a time when the news was actually printed out on papers, and everyone bought one so they would know exactly what was going on in the world... for real.
I cannot believe how timely this is! As I sat reading my Los Angeles Times this morning, no TV on, laptop not opened yet, I became aware that I had just absorbed more information about several things that I will never see on the 24 hour news cycle: an article about an amazing treatment for metastasized breast cancer that worked for one women, but has enormous implications for treatment for this and other cancers down the road, a story about a meeting in Kabul, Afghanistan of several Imams who were united in calling for an end to suicide bombings and Muslim vs Muslim warfare, which ended with a suicide bomber blowing himself up and killing 7 other people, an in-depth explanation of the Supreme Court's ruling upholding the baker in Phillips v Colorado Civil Rights Commission, and several editorials and extremely articulate letters about other modern day matters. Plus the feeling of holding that paper in my hands, looking at those pages and connecting with the people out there who put that paper there for me. We really have lost something valuable and important in our lives and the lives of generations to come. Reading a book or a newspaper is a totally different experience from reading an online article. It's substantively different in what you are asking your brain to do and it is substantively more rewarding to read print on a page, uninterrupted by those ads and the inherent distractions on an electronic screen. Now on the the "B" section!!
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