Ink on paper. The heat and noise of a sweltering room filled with five dozen or more Linotype machines spitting out stories in columns of hot lead. The distinctive smell of today’s edition permeating the press room.
Yes, I remember it well.
A newspaper, my father used to say, was “a miracle that happens every day.”
Tom Jefferson, founding father, opined that were it left to him to choose between “a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Here are some more good quotations about newspapers.
As for me—I was born into the newspaper business. My mother and father met while he was working for the Philadelphia Bulletin and she was working at the rival Inquirer. I had a little bit of printer’s ink in my blood. Even today, while many Americans have abandoned the printed newspaper, we subscribe to two: The Newark Star-Ledger and the New York Times.
Why? The reason is simple. News on the printed page is better.
A Matter of Curation
Imagine an art exhibition where the paintings were selected in order of the sizes of their frames. How about a concert where the music selections were made in date order of their copyrights or alphabetically by title?
The techno-geeks behind news aggregation websites have figured out algorithms that they use to display “content” to appear in newsfeeds. Sure, news is present. But it doesn’t compare with what happens on a printed page.
<ASIDE: Streaming is the rage in music these days. Buy just the songs you like. But imagine if one of your favorite singers or bands was willing to put together a special playlist for you—choosing songs that go together and put them in just the right order. And let’s say the music lasted somewhere between a half-hour and an hour. What could we call that? Oh, how about, “an album.” END ASIDE>
Stories in newspapers are chosen carefully and laid out with pictures in ways that draw readers into the piece. Then the editors (curators) of the news exhibition place related stories nearby. They pique your interest with the first piece, then they draw you into another.
It’s insidious. You can open up the paper and spend hours following the threads.
But, if time is of the essence, speed through the pages scanning the headlines. Take brief plunges here and there. In fifteen minutes, you will know more than people who spend three or four hours doom-scrolling through newsfeeds.
A newspaper, ink on paper, is far and away the best way to find out what’s happening in the world.
And more importantly, a physical, printed newspaper is the ideal way to enjoy a daily escape from the news.
The Comics Page
I love newspaper comics. I read them in the Star-Ledger daily without fail. (No comics in The Times, alas, but I am addicted to a few of their puzzles.)
Ink on paper and comics go hand in hand. The first illustrated magazines featured political cartoons.
Honoré Daumier went to jail for six months for his satiric representation of King Philippe IV.
Thomas Nast created the image that has come to define Santa Claus in commercial Americana, for better or worse.
The Yellow Kid and Krazy Kat paved the way for Dick Tracy and L’il Abner.
And today, there are hundreds of daily comic strips available, despite the contraction of the newspaper industry. And some of the creators of these comics are, in my opinion, brilliant artists.
So, let’s talk about comics: The proper technique for reading the comic pages; shout-outs for some of the best strips running; special attention to the very best; and thoughts about how the poor, benighted folk who don’t subscribe to a daily newspaper can get their comic page fix.
Anon.
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