Photo by Cynthia Larsen
Confessions of a Newspaper Junkie
When readers, not reporters, are the actual “ink-stained wretches”
By Ed Goldman
Though I’ve never been a true news junkie, I confess to being a newspaper junkie.
Friends and loved ones know that when they travel abroad or even to the next state, the best gift to bring me back, if they’re so inclined, is neither a drink coaster from the Jackson Hole Travel Lodge nor a garment emblazoned with the message, “They went to Fallujah and all they brought me back was this lousy burka.”
Flake news
No, what I really like getting is a copy of the destination’s local newspaper. But this presumes that the destination even has one.
It used to be that almost every town in our country and many others had at least one newspaper. That’s no longer the case, as you might have read in the—oh, no, of course not.
I’ve mentioned here before that one of the biggest letdowns I experience these days is when I stay at a hotel in a city, state or country not my own and I ask front-desk clerks if they have a newspaper—or if they don’t, does their gift shop? When they say they don’t, I ask if there are any newsstands downtown. Or, God forfend, a bookstore. Nope and nope.
This isn’t because I ask only when I’m in small towns. Many of those still have local papers reporting on high school sports (“RHS Grasshoppers Beat BHS Aardvarks in 58-41 B-Ball Squeaker”); bridge parties, book clubs and the like (“Mrs. Marvella Cockburn Says She’s ‘Retiring’ from the Summerset Scrapbooking Society to Devote More Time to Drinking”); and maybe even a Rotary-sponsored Daddy-Daughter Cellphone-Wrest(l)ing Dance.
The papers may even run a toothless editorial or two (“Why Can’t They Do Something About the Watered-Down Picante Sauce at the Howard Johnson’s off Highway 24?”) and, always, a letters section (“President Millard Fillmore Day is getting too darned commercial for my tastes”).
A key source of revenue for a local paper is usually the Classified Ad section, which may feature local employment opportunities (“Are You The Kind of Go-Getter Who Realizes That Cleaning Toiletbowls Today At Our Econo-Gas/Mini-Mart Station May Lead to the Executive Washroom At Company HQ Tomorrow?”); death notices (“Now in the grave lies Hamilton Blake/Who stepped on the gas instead of the brake”); and a section it inevitably calls The Marketplace (“Does anyone want to buy my 1964 Ford Pinto? This is the famous model with the exploding fuel tank, which my brother-in-law assures me will never explode, especially if you don’t drive the car”).
It’s newspapering at its most basic. But charming and harmless (except for that Pinto).
In 1973 I edited the Paramount Journal, a small-town newspaper in Southern California. I also sold many of its ads and helped on “press night” (when the paper was actually printed). And I created a weekly cartoon for the Belmont Shore Marina News, but also did the “paste-up” of the paper, deftly wielding an X-Acto knife and smearing wax on the back of galley proofs. (If this terminology is alien to you, I promise that no online tutorial on obsolete publishing techniques will follow.) The point is that when you work on a small-town newspaper, your job description is heavy on “other duties as assigned.”
Back on topic: I’ve been in state capitals that all but require you to form a posse to find a place where they sell newspapers. Worse yet, not all of the libraries have them, either.
It’s certainly easy to understand that when people can get all of the distorted news they want from their mobile devices, where’s the economic sense in selling, much less publishing, newspapers?
I realize that some reputable papers still publish print editions and maintain robust websites, like my two faves, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. But some people of my age and older still swear by the sensual joy of holding and folding traditional newspapers, getting the ink all over their hands and white Levi’s. Still, when you’re hooked, you’re hooked. And I am. I’m not even a junkie who’ll tell you he can quit anytime he wants; that, dear reader, would be fake news.
Ed Goldman's column appears almost every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. A former daily columnist for the Sacramento Business Journal, as well as monthly columnist for Sacramento Magazine and Comstock’s Business Magazine, he’s the author of five books, two plays and one musical (so far).
