A Communications Conundrum

There are two things that I know I shouldn’t do just before going to bed.

One: eat a hot pepper-laden burrito, and two: check my Facebook wall.

The first bad choice is obvious; for years now spicy food after nine o’clock at night is asking for trouble. I’ll spare you the grisly details.

The second choice is, perhaps, not so obvious. I have to admit that most times when I check FB I find interesting, funny, welcome posts. But every once in a while, a friend will post a link to some other person’s site where that person goes on and on about some topic that sets my teeth on edge and gets my blood pressure up.

I know, I shouldn’t fall into the trap of following those links, but the siren call of the recommended link is insidious. It’s like trying to walk past a plate of peanut butter cookies, just out of the oven, when they have reached that critical temperature of still being very warm, but not burn-the-roof-of-your-mouth hot.  It’s very hard to resist.

And so it was, late last night, as I scrolled through the most recent posts, that I arrived at the one that sent me into hours of sleeplessness. Some wag posted a link to a site that had a lead article about “Print is Dead!”

Claims of the demise of something having great cultural import have to be made cautiously. In the 1960’s a group of excitable theologians put forth the “God is Dead” theory and look where that idea went.

The writer of this screed clearly was very excited about his discovery. His evangelical zeal on this matter oozed from his words. I could just imagine him bouncing in his chair as he wrote his article - so sure of his opinions, so happy to assign “print” to the ashcan of communications history.

He was, of course, not assigning all print to the dump, digital print was okay, it was hard-copy stuff – inky stuff- newspapers, magazines, books – all so yesterday.

Well, here I am writing on a digital publication. And yes, I do read all my news on internet publications and sources. I read several good newspapers, on-line, as well as pieces on various journal websites. The thought is that long-form writing will still be endured in some magazines, but hard copy daily news, or even weekly news, is a thing of the past if you think in terms of newsprint, ink, paper. Each week I still await my hard copy of the New Yorker, for some reason the pleasure of first checking out all the cartoons, then reading the short pieces, then the long pieces remains one of my enjoyable reading experiences.

I know we do still have local papers that come out once a week. But small towns across America have seen what were once vital, greatly anticipated weekly journals devolve into mostly advertising and generic, often poorly written articles penned by people who clearly have no history or roots in the towns they write about.

Does this matter?

Maybe. There was a time when Dover and Sherborn had a series of hard copy newspapers that had many, many articles each week talking about what the schools and churches were doing, how various sports teams were progressing through their seasons, the actions of various town committees, long articles exploring the wisdom or folly of proposed new ordinances, building projects, changes in the appearance of the towns.  There were impassioned letters to the editor. A death of a well-known townsperson evoked a long article about her/his life and involvement in the town. There were articles about the towns’ history that informed discussions about the towns’ future.

We anticipated Thursdays when the new papers would appear. We read early in the day, and then called friends to ask, “Did you read what was in today’s paper?” The old newspapers were a central communications thread that held the community together. Could this be done by digital news sources?  Yes, why not? It could be.

My opinion is that a town needs a vital, trusted, well-written source for local news. I wish it could still be a “print” hard copy, inky publication. I always liked that. But it can be digital. Maybe we could have both. 

Anyway, as Mark Twain said, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” I think newspapers as we knew them are dead, but the need to know still requires trusted sources of information. It is up to people in the communications field to give us those sources in whatever platform works. We are in a state of flux. When are we not?