The Future of News not Paper

You can keep the coffee. Just give me the paper. I need the newspaper to survive the morning. It enlightens and entertains me. It’s also a great placemat when a story so enthralls or enrages me I spill my cereal. A wise man named Josh Brown once said, “as long as I’m gainfully employed I’ll subscribe to the paper.” I agree and I don’t even have a job.

The morning paper is an endangered species as dailies move or mirror content online at varying paces. Vintage staff writers worry they won’t adjust to the blog world and may lose their jobs. Hiring freezes chill the industry as publishers push early retirement on tenured writers. That’s why I can’t land a staff position even at a mid-sized paper.

Though I am for the environment, I’m against physical newspaper obsolescence. What would I do without that telltale 4 AM thud of packaged newsprint on concrete? Let’s just say it’s more devastating than what I’d do for a Klondike Bar. Yikes.

I read Slate Magazine online, listen to NPR, watch Fox News (just to keep things fair, balanced, and interesting), and browse various other virtual publications which oft serve as cannon fodder for my blogservations, but I’m a newshound who demands real material in my hands; I want to feel current events. Besides, if I spill milk on my laptop, I’m screwed! I like to cut articles and, you guessed it –comic strips out of the paper. I like the texture of recycled newsprint and the ink stains it leaves on all my white surfaces. Maybe I’m old fashioned, but using a magnifying glass to read tiny stories on an ipod rubs me wrong.

Until home printers can adequately authenticate newspapers –infectious ink and all— I’ll keep paying the paperboy. Eliminating newspaper delivery takes spending money away from kids who spend it on slingshots and BB guns. And what about the nocturnal weirdoes who toss papers from their minivans? Who’ll employ these husky vampires? Our fragile economy can’t cope without print news. Kid weapons and burrito sales will suffer. For the sake of mischievous children, odd adults the postal service won’t hire, old time rag devotees like me, and the nation, don’t stop the presses!