∞ When a community loses its newspaper

Written by

Jim Romenesko:

After publishing for 110 years, the Holyoke Transcript-Telegram went out of business and left the community of 30,000 without a daily newspaper. That was in 1993. “In Holyoke babies have been born, raised and sent off to college or war or other adult responsibilities without ever seeing their names in a T-T article taped to a refrigerator,” writes former Miami Herald and Boston Globe editor Thomas Fiedler. “Congressmen, mayors, and city councilors have been elected, served, and retired without knowing a hometown daily’s beat reporter.”

I never really thought of it like that before. Kind of sad.


  • http://twitter.com/VGISoftware Daniel Swanson

    I disagree.

    A newspaper is a commercial entity with its charter being: to make a profit. Back of that, the company has to provide a product which enough people see to be worth its price.

    If that classic formula ceases to work, the paper closes–just like any other business. It’s simply the end of a “life cycle”–a death.

    I don’t read newspapers. Never have. Never will.

    I read news websites. But even that is transforming for me.

    I used to read Macworld, just as you used to work for it. But I’m finding that I disagree more and more with its editorial content, this to the point, after “disagreeing” enough via article threads, I’ve been blocked from commenting–apparently permanently.

    So be it. Perhaps I was too rude to some other commenters. Fair enough.

    But I was never a good customer, anyway. I rarely looked at nor read any of its ads, either.

    What I HAVE found interesting, in lieu of “news” sites, though, is Twitter.

    I can follow only those entities I’m interested in; can un-follow any of those at any time; I can block “promotional” tweets, and I’m not deluged with ads.

    If I somehow had to pay for Twitter, I just might.

    • Anonymous

      Of course it’s sad. The snippet Jim is quoting doesn’t speak to the efficiency of the printed word vs. the digital one. It’s a comment on social fabric, on the permanence and physicality of print versus the transient nature of the Web. Something is lost.

      As with any kind of trade-off, there are pluses and minuses, and gains as well as losses. The same kids that don’t get to see their names in print do get to be exposed to a hugely more varied array of information (no double-meaning intended) that earlier generations didn’t, thanks to the Web. But it’s a trade-off of personal for impersonal. I agree that this part of it is quite sad.

      • http://twitter.com/VGISoftware Daniel Swanson

        Permanence you say! Oh, let’s celebrate the permanence of ink on newsprint–how the ink blackens one’s fingers–how nicely the newsprint yellows over the course of a couple weeks–how many trees get cut down–how much more landfills get filled with all of it.

        If permanence so good, let’s celebrate even more the Rosetta Stone! Now that’s permanence. But what of its relevance?No. Newpapers are artifacts of what is soon to be the past–especially as their relevance to daily affairs wanes.Anyone interested in current vital news should get out more and open one’s own eyes to see what is actually there.

        • Anonymous

          Those are straw man arguments, Daniel. Everything is a mixture. Newspapers do well at some things and not well at others. Digital delivery does well at some things and not well at others. Expressing some sadness at missing the things newspapers did well that the internet doesn’t isn’t the same thing as wishing to trade back. It’s just an acknowledgement that there are things that we lose in the equation, and occasionally I, for one, miss those things.

          We make these trade-offs all the time. Digital photography is wonderful: I love shooting digitally, it removes barriers to my creativity and improvement. But I do still miss some of the familiar and tactile things about shooting with film. I can turn on my DVR and watch any show I’m interested in, whenever I want. It enables me to consume my media in a much more efficient and enjoyable way. But I do occasionally miss the feeling of anticipation, the family gathering around the television as a regular thing, instead of “I’ll watch it later.” I grew up listening to albums on turntables. Leaving aside the audiophile arguments about the quality of the music, it made the act of playing a song a little more valuable, in a way: it wasn’t just a button-press away.

          Or perhaps I’m just an old man bemoaning how fast the world is flying by, just when I’m ready to start slowing down.

          You are very narrowly focusing on one set of values, Daniel, and marginalizing things that other people find valuable, that perhaps make life a little more meaningful in a small way. Like how the ink blackens one’s fingers, and how nicely the newsprint yellows.

          • http://twitter.com/VGISoftware Daniel Swanson

            I’m probably older than you, “old man”, not about ready to slow down, and damn glad I never got lulled into relying on a bunch of hack writers (or the puppet masters who tell them what to write) have to say about what I should swallow as “the truth.”

  • http://twitter.com/leicaman leicaman

    Having worked for newspapers for years, and having gotten a lot of feedback from readers, I know Jim’s sadness is justified. Sure, newspapers are commercial entities. Ink and paper, presses and staff cost a lot of money. Wall Street corrupted newspapers by turning them into profit centers that lost their ability to make decisions based on the needs of the communities they served. Used to be the money stayed in town, and the owners did get rich. But they also felt an obligation to be that social fabric that knitted the community together.

    But there are other reasons to be sad. One is people who are ignorant of the value of a news source where you don’t just subscribe to people you like and/or agree with can force you to think outside of your little echo chamber. Editors can sort through the drek (at least they used to) and give you news they believed best served the widest audience. But also that informed people of things they might not have thought to learn about on their own. 

    And an experience in 1993 convinced me of the value of news organizations that are local vs national or world-wide in scope. I worked for a newspaper that was the oldest west of the Mississippi. They had not missed a day without an edition since the Civil War. The 500 year flood hit and the newspaper became many peoples’ lifelines to know what was going on around them.

    Some cities were without water and electricity for days or weeks. I ended up working 12-16 hour days seven days a week for six weeks during that flood. And I had more than one person tell me that their lives had been saved by the newspaper letting them know when the flood waters were going to reach their peaks and they knew they had to leave their homes. And they were quick to point out that the local TV station wasn’t giving them that information. Neither was the radio. Why? Because we had the staff to cover it all. 

    But with staff cuts and resources being limited so that owners/Wall Street can get their blood money, newspapers die. They cut their staff to the bone, so there’s less information. They cut the news hole so there’s less news. They don’t cover stories as well as they used to. Local news is important. But money is more important to many corporate entities. That newspaper I worked for is still going. They’ve bought up a few local competitors. So they are continuing to do what they do best. It’s owned by two local brothers that care about profits, but they care about their community as well. That’s quite uncommon these days.

    A really sad story is a recent incident where Larry Price – former Philadelphia Inquirer photographer, Pultizer Prize winner and former National Geographic photo editor resigned rather than lay off some of his staff members in a round of cost-cutting measures. News is never going to be what it used to be until the profiteers get tired of the business and move on.

    • http://twitter.com/VGISoftware Daniel Swanson

      All you’re talking about are “shoulda, woulda, coulda”s and the past. This paper folding is today, because they DIDN’T deliver the kinds of products you lament from the past. That’s all I’m talking about.

      They quit producing anything of value, and they folded. Fact. That’s not so sad. It’s just what is.