And Another Thing

My personal theory about all this over the top interest in college athletics has to do with the increasing the packaging of news as a commodity. No better example than on the TV right now as I look at Fox News’ Day Side. Not to pick on Fox News – it would be the same if CNN or MSNBC were on at this time of day – but they roll the top of the hour with a silly faux intro about bachlorette parties gone wild. The B-Roll was a would-be party going on in the control room for the soon-to-be married female producer.

Let’s not kid anyone – it’s always been that way; William Randolph Hearst didn’t build an empire on community service during the early 20^th century and Rupurt Murdoch hasn’t become a captain of industry in the 21^st by not giving the people what they want.

One thing that sets today apart from the past, the middle is not holding. You’ve got a heck of a lot more people not willing to admit to the packaging and a big segment of pretentious professionals on one side; a growing group of content producers doing its best to appeal to the lowest common denominator and the highest market segment on the other side. The result? Good luck getting coverage for an event on the merits of the event. The SEC track meet or the NCAA women’s tennis championships do not get regular straight news coverage in the sports sections any more. Forget being the newspaper of record. Editors will argue those people have already found that information out on-line or not enough people care.

As an avid consumer of newspapers, yes I want to read the value-added writing that only comes from an experienced journalist; a beat writer that can bring the needed perspective to an event. But, as a historian, this trend toward not even running agate or small AP lead stories on events is tragic.

Why? How many of you have an 8-track tape player? Or a cassette player for that matter? Got any 5.25-floppy disks? Any floppy disks?

Paper lasts. I don’t care what anyone says, the only storage medium that has lasted more than a decade or two is the printed word. And imaging that on film, scans, etc., is dependent on that reader remaining available. Digital archiving is really, really helpful – particularly when the data begins digitally.

But if its all about the internet, why is world-wide paper consumption growing year after year.