So Starbucks will stop selling newspapers. What's a newspaper?

You won't be able to buy The New York Times, Wall Street Journal or any local newspaper at Starbucks come September because Starbucks is going out of the newspaper business.

Isn't everybody?

"Is Starbucks still selling coffee?" Well, yes, but...

"Phew! Then that's fine by me."

Oh, I get it. You're  under 50 (or 40 or 30) and don't care. You never did. And while that sounds snotty, it isn't meant to be. That's just the fact. That's called progress. Everything evolves from start to never ending. We will not be driving our own cars by May 12, 2057 according to my inside information.

Og in his office

Little known fact about newspapers: While most think newspapers began with moveable type and then Benjamin Franklin, it was actually Og, in CMMMII BC who published The Daily Stone with this crazy headline: "Wheel To Replace Dragging by MMMD BC," and he was right on. Newspaper journalism has always been of the highest standard.   

 I really do get it, but with some sadness. Nobody (well maybe a few) reads newspapers anymore, preferring to get their news, entertainment and everything else in the world on a 2"x 4" screen. It's cleaner, faster and with them all the time. But, it is not as complete, not easily clip-able and doesn't give a complete or full story unless you keep clicking. Most significant, you never know what you don't know and have learned to not care much about that.

The reason most never read newspapers today is because they don't want to. And besides, you can't talk or text or take pictures with your newspaper.

Supply and demand automatically determine what works and what doesn't. And newspapers don't. So Boo Hoo. We evolve or die. That goes for everything.

If you care for further great newspaper insight, check these links out... or don't. I'm getting in my stick-shift car now and driving myself around to look for the closest phone booth so I can call the library to ask the librarian to look up something for me.

http://itsnutsoutthere.blogspot.com/2018/09/all-news-thats-fit-to-print-eulogy-for.html
http://itsnutsoutthere.blogspot.com/2018/03/todays-riddle-what-is-black-and-white.html
http://itsnutsoutthere.blogspot.com/2019/03/is-media-enemy-of-people-as-president.html

All The News That's Fit to Print: Eulogy for a dying media

The NYTimes and one of its special inserts

It was Benjamin Harris of Boston who, in 1690, published Public Occurrences, the first newspaper in America. While it lasted just one issue, it was the beginning of the most informative media ever.

This is a look at that media in all its glory, the irony being that as it gets better, it still dies in the hearts and minds of today's world, replaced by the internet, that snot-nosed little kid, Social Media and its siblings.

Newspaper readership today is just half the number that read in the mid 1970s. And of those newspapers, less than half are today published daily.

Newspapers, however, still have a unique place. They are overwhelmingly honest and sincere in coverage of all the news, no matter how they are tarred by the President.  They are honest, albiet with an editorial voice that expresses a specific view point at times. There is no made-up news, quite unlike social media where users are allowed to say anything without check.

All newspapers have suffered the loss of readers and advertisers by glitzier competition that does have its place, but nothing covers more local and national news as newspapers,  Today's people just have more options to choose from and more things to do than read a newspaper. That's life.

However, to salute the power to be important, there are few that do it as well as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and others like them, most in major markets where there is the population and are advertisers that help make them go.

Where I live, my very fine local paper is published only twice a week. It covers important local news really well. But I still fork out $6.41 every Sunday for The NY Times. It remains a full-day read of 5 or 6 sections, feature stories as well as news, plus a  highly regarded book review magazine and The NYTimes magazine with a crossword that could last far longer. No comics though.

It has many special sections like the impressive one shown here, Sunday In the Park, a 16-pager pulled together by 10 photographers and reporters to feature all 117 people enjoying the Sheep Meadow section of Central Park in the heart of Manhattan on a warm summer Sunday. It is filled with special interest and people personality... and the tiny stories that wouldn't see the light of day if it weren't for newspapers. It is a treat to enjoy. Take that Facebook. Newspapers have staff to do that stuff... and be held responsible.

Here's how the pros do it

The overview of A Sunday in the Park, 4 feet wide unfolded

The other side... the people close up with comments

Another take on newspapers: Today's Riddle: What is black and white and red all over?

TODAY'S RIDDLE: What is black and white and red all over?

 

Answer: A newspaper!

Ok, ok. I know the riddle is totally wrong for three reasons:

1. I cheated... the word red should have been spelled read, which would have given it away, but the riddle was meant to be spoken, not written.
2. Today, newspapers aren't only black and white but filled with color. (The riddle goes way back to my second grade and I laughed that lunchtime I heard it 'till milk came out of my nose.) 
3. What's a newspaper?

Today, newspapers are disappearing by the hundreds and newspaper circulation and readership is on a downhill slide that quickly becomes 'the new normal' on how we see and learn things.

Most millennials and later-born get their news on line or on television... the news-lite version that is more-to-the-minute but of less substance and range, unless you count the entertainment portion an news one has to know.  It is also less dependable as news because it is mixed with every opinion on everything from everyone on social media... most of which is believed without doubt if it fits your personal 'bent.'

Social media didn't invent 'fake news' but it did perfect its widespread dissemination.

This past week, a New York Times technology writer's story, "For Two Months, I Got My News From Print Papers. Here's What I Learned," painted a most interesting picture of what happens when newspapers fall out of our life-view.

No, this is not a call to go back to newspapers, though that would certainly improve news credibility. We have passed that point in our technology-enhanced existence. But yes, newspapers still play a vital role if only as bell-weathers of the news basics with the five 'Ws' and an 'H' (Who, What, Why When, Where and How) of substance.

With the proven realization that fake news spreads faster than real news--usually, it is more spectacular or surprisingly hard to believe, yet believed and spread by a 3 to 1 ratio on social media with a tap of the finger--all news becomes suspiciously less credible.

We create the world we live in and yet, we are the ones who don't take out the garbage that comes with it. As our president might tweet: "SAD!"

NEXT: How easily fake news is created. A primer you will recognize.