It’s Saturday night on Broadway. We’re waiting
for Fats at the newsstand to count and stack copies of the Sunday Times the
truck just dumped on the curb. Fats is fatter than ever. The Times is
fat, too.
“Two stacks this week,” he says, no longer able
to reach high enough to make one neat pile. “All the edges have to line
up just right or the whole damn thing falls over.”
Then some guy comes along and tries to take the
copy underneath the top. “Nobody wants the top copy,” Fats says, “It’s
like someone has already read half of the front page and that makes it ‘used.’”
Eyeworn?
Fats, the Times and the times were all pretty
fat in those days. Is he still curbside on a Saturday? Probably
could call a friend from the old days and ask. Nah. If it’s “yes,” so
what? If it’s “no,” we’d have to investigate.
The paper was fat because every fat cat with a
roll of bills in his pocket was eager to find new places to spend it. And
every fat advertiser went to sleep Saturday night with dreams of those bill
rolls dancing in his head.
Nice arrangement, then. Not so nice these days.
The rolls are smaller and they’re mostly singles and fives. And there are fewer
places to spend them. Fewer dancing dreams. The bills jammed lower in the
pocket.
The price of reading news has been sinking for
years. It starts with zero and works its way up to a few dollars a month.
The price of covering news has changed inversely. This arrangement may
work for A-list papers in A-list places. But it can’t work for the
Sorta-Daily News of North Merrill’s Crossing, Nebraska.
So, you say… well, nothing ever happens in North
Merrill’s Crossing, Nebraska, so who cares? They asked that about other
tiny or otherwise insignificant places… like Kenosha, WI or Lynchburg, VA.
Nothing ever happened. Until it did.
As is well known to regulars at this site, the
official position here is that all politicians are self serving megalomaniacs
who will say or do anything to keep their smutty little jobs -- most of which
require no actual work.
Radio news is dead. Local TV news is all-bodies
and all fires and ham pot pie dinners for retired postal workers and returning
vets all the time. The politicians have been charged with guarding the Greater
Good. Not good. Local papers and (a few) local websites are the
only ones left to do what may be the most important job in journalism today.
SOME QUESTIONS:
--Why bother with the letter “w” when there are
so many words with “u u” in them and the W is silent in so many others?
--When does a fringe idea become mainstream?
--Do you think your LED lightbulb will outlive
you?
--Is your cellphone contract longer than your
life expectancy?
--How do companies make money on 0% interest
loans?
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but
you’re welcome to them. ®
Any Questions: wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2020
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