Disappeared News

Maybe people are reading newspapers less because of the increasingly obvious bias in the commercial media.

Maybe people are reading newspapers less because there's too much disappeared news. Things we actually know a little about that don't get printed, like who is responsible for atrocities in Palestine, what happened to the Superferry in drydock, what the Winter Soldiers said last weekend that we all need to hear. What is the civilian death toll in Iraq, why no presidential candidate is asking for single payer national health care, what have their voting records been?

Maybe people are reading newspapers less because all they talk about is how much money politicians rake in for campaigns without discussing the paybacks that are expected for those bribes.

Maybe we don't want so many "info-mercials," maybe we don't look upon ourselves as commodities to be served up to advertisers. Maybe the pizza ads are making us fat.

Maybe, as per the comment (thank you) added to a previous article, we now have alternatives:

circulation could be dropping because no one wants to buy that stuff anymore. it's not convenient (folding a paper the right way is an art generation Xers never learned) and it's just crap anyway. it always was crap, but now we've got an alternative.

Maybe newspapers that use a single typeface for almost everything are just plain boring. I just discovered that there are several typographical videos on YouTube. What a gas for typography freaks like me.

Funny, kind of:

Artistic:

(if you go to any of these on YouTube, the "related videos" have some powerful works including some that don't fit on a family blog like this....)

There's still a lot to be said for the static page—for books that last for years, for comics that teach kids to read,  and even for newsprint destined for the landfill next week. But on the Internet, words can inform, challenge, and yes, even dance. To compete, newspapers might think about how they can do their important job better (hint).

'Cause the Internet not only informs us, but it listens to us and it's often a lot more fun.