Disappeared News

by Larry Geller

A couple of days ago strong, gusty winds blew through the halls of our condo. When I peeked out the door, I found my newspaper evenly distributed over about 30 feet of hallway and the comics page threatening to escape should an elevator door open.

It was a little bit of work to gather and put it all back together. After I did so, I was tempted to ask myself:

Why?

The Advertiser has become lightweight in several respects. The economics of the nationwide newspaper meltdown have not spared it. Even the rubber band that was missing on that windy day has been downsized to the scrawniest size I think they could buy.

But the Why? was triggered by something that happened at the State Capitol.

I noticed that in one way, the Advertiser has already made its transition to online coverage. If you want to find out what’s going on in our government, you would be well advised to tune in to The Notebook, penned (if I can still use that expression) by Derrick DePledge and Peter Boylan.

Key background and full stories that are missing from the paper are now found in The Notebook. Check out the current entries and scroll back in time for news that never saw print but is essential to understand what’s coming down in the legislature, for example, on civil unions.

This is local news that could not be outsourced from the Mainland. And it’s in a blog. That’s what I meant by “Crossover at the Legislature.” I think the point has been reached where a person who wishes to stay informed of state government events needs to pay attention to what’s online. It’s not enough to just read one or more papers each day.

You’ll also find stories beyond what could practically appear in a print paper (like the cute pic of a young Colleen Hanabusa). Seriously, though, the background is deep and there are no crushing space limitations imposed by the shrunken paper’s diminutive size and encroaching giant color photographs.

The paradox is that a less informative print paper could blow away faster if it no longer delivers what readers expect. In which case, who pays for the blogs that are moving into position to replace it?

Permalink posted by Larry @ 4/09/2009 07:37:00 AM