As a follow up to “News Finds Me“, I present an article in The New Yorker in which the downward trend of traditional print media is followed. Although a bit long-winded (it is The New Yorker, after all) this article again identifies the demise of newspapers.
- The New York Times Company: stock down 54% since 2004
- The McClatchey Company/Knight Ridder: surrendered 80% of its stock
- 25% of all American newspaper jobs have disappeared since 1990
The prediction is that the last newspaper will be chucked onto the last doorstep by 2043. But we have seen these kinds of predictions before. And while I myself tend to have a specific disdain for printed newspapers (messy, ad-ridden, johnny-come-lately), I do not share the dire view of newspapers. Books are increasingly available in electronic format, whether by audiobook or ebook. And yet, libraries are still open, Amazon.com is still king of the hill, and I have a few thousand books on my shelves.
I love books. The weight of one in my hands and the smell of the pages convinces me that I am smarter because of them. Books are truly romantic and real. The power of the printed word is immeasurable.
And so it is for newspapers. Despite my disdain, the smell of the ink on the paper and the weight of the Sunday edition as it lie across my lap provide a real and tangible connection to the world.
Yes, my reasoning smacks more of nostalgia than substantive argument. And this is where I wax of philosophy. Man is corporeal and must ultimately rely on real things in order to be properly formed. And while the Internet, blogs, and other electronic media are definitely here to stay, by his very nature Man needs that which he can possess. A bookmark to the New York Times after 9/11 means nothing compared to having a physical copy of the same newspaper in one’s own possession.
One of the great losses within today’s society is the inability to know what Man is. Sure, we all have ideas of what Man should be or could be. But we must first learn and accept that Man is a corporeal creature, with all of the pitfalls and potential that comes with a full understanding of ‘corporeal creature’. Only after embracing this definition and understanding it can publications like The New Yorker predict what Man will or will not do. Until that time, a man can be paid the big bucks to spew 1,000 words to predict the end of a legacy — but not be called ‘Chicken Little’.
