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Question for the week
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Posted: 04/09/06 We stopped at the gas station on our way to breakfast yesterday morning to buy the Sunday Chicago Tribune. It's part of our weekly ritual, and I spend a good portion of my reading time during the next seven days just catching up on what happened the previous seven. I know I can get the day's highlights on TV's evening news and up-to-the-minute happenings on various all-news radio stations. I can even have breaking stories channel their way into my email program. AOL, MSNBC, and Fox are all out there wanting to attract my attention. But I prefer to read about news rather than listen to casters with dramatic voices tell me about it. I prefer the imagining of scenes and situations that reading requires over roving cameras and on-the-scene reporters. I don't claim that one source of news is less or more biased than the other; but my personal bias is that the written word tends to be less emotional and more thought out. After all, it takes time to commit words to paper. Earl tells me newspapers are struggling for readership and advertising, and this Sunday's Trib certainly suggested that point of view. This is the weekend before the Easter holiday, and I imagined a thick paper, full of spring features and bunny-related ideas. Possibly gardening and clean-up suggestions too. Some of that was included, but the meatier sections -- like Perspective, Metro, and even Sports -- were noticeably thin. In fact, the largest sections were Automotive and Real Estate, which are really all about selling something rather than informing. I wonder why newspapers are declining, but I think I already know some of the reasons. They are expensive to produce and, with streaming videos on your computer, are often out-of-date before they hit the evening newsstands. Print advertising is down, readership is down. In general, criticism of media is up and newspapers have not been spared any of the vitriol. Regardless, I plan to stick to reading my news and admiring the editors, columnists, and stringers who bring it to me.
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