Saving Trees
The weekend’s non-news item at The Dispatch made the case for rescuing small local newspapers, even if by government subsidy. The basis for the argument was the familiar nostalgic lament that these papers were once valuable, but now can’t make it, leaving small rural counties and towns bereft of journalistic review, devoid of critical observers who could hold public officials accountable, deter corruption, and shine the bright light of public opprobrium on misdeeds and misdoers, etc.
I, too, can wax nostalgic at the ideal. Gone are the small community society pages, the local police blotter where you never wanted your parents to spot your name because you were caught misdoing. Gone are the ads for Bobby’s Hardware Store, the showing schedule at the two-screen cineplex or drive-in—gone along with the actual advertisers themselves, long defunct. Even longer gone are the local print monopolies on classified ads at extortionate rates. In fact, newspapers have been doing themselves in for decades now, if you take a less nostalgic look at them, underperforming every new technology and losing circulation numbers to people who find their offerings too expensive and too uninteresting. In fact, out of sincere privacy considerations for small-time criminals, they don’t even publish names in the police blotter anymore—at least not in our local dead-tree publication. So you no longer know exactly which local miscreants to fear and loath.
Once the newspaper industry matured in the early 20th century, it wasn’t long that competition sprang up in the form of radio, followed by TV. This led to waves of consolidations as multi-paper towns became single-paper towns. Next came the free classified advertising papers where private citizens could sell their couches, cars, and yard-sale plans for next to nothing, drying up another newspaper revenue source. Finally, the internet came around and readers flocked to the greater selection of whatever they happened to find more newsworthy and of greater interest. Social media allowed users to interact in the peer-to-peer fashion they preferred to the top-down editorial-bored choices of the newspaper’s publishers.
The problem, as I see it, is how you justify having taxpayers fund a local newspaper if it has no readers. The papers are folding because they can’t keep enough subscriptions to keep going, since their ad revenues have shriveled up. And their ad revenues will continue to shrivel up because their paltry circulation numbers don’t justify anyone’s ad spending. Why should taxpayers fund something that no one has much use for?
For myself, at least, I can’t imagine taking on another subscription of something I already don’t feel like I’ve got the time to read. How much is the local small-town paper worth to you?
Here’s Steven Waldman’s case in The Dispatch. For good measure and a different perspective, here’s Andrey Mir explaining why this is the way things will go no matter what we might (say we) want.
We actually subscribe to two local newspapers. One in our hometown where we live now, and a hometown newspaper where Katie grew up. Each is a weekly. They are mostly good for the obituaries, some coupons, and local sports. My youngest son has been on the front page twice! 🤠 And not for being arrested! 😳. (Basketball)
The funny point is that until he started blow drying his hair, he was the spitting image of his mother. I sent the picture to an old friend, who said it looked just like me! Of course, he also looks like his brother who I think it’s a spitting image of his mother, especially from the profile. And our adopted daughter looks like both of them too. I don’t know if it’s a small world or just a polluted gene pool. 😳
I continue to subscribe to the Chicago Tribune on paper, 7 days a week. I prefer reading it on paper. I pass it on by leaving the papers in the break room when I'm finished with them.