Newspapers
Newsman (sic) have a very short attention span. It is a prerequisite in the business. That is why the news accounts of almost everything makes sense to all ages up to the age of twelve. If one wishes to enjoy newspapers, it is wise to halt all intellectual development right up to that age. The schools are doing their level best to achieve this goal. For the first time in history it is possible to earn doctorates in obscure professional techniques without upsetting the standard of a twelve-year-old basic intellect. – Travis McGee from A Deadly Shade of Gold published in 1965.
Wow! Was John D MacDonald spot on or what? And this was before Gender Studies and African Racial Grievance Studies.
Newspapers have only gotten worse.
I started reading newspapers back in the 50’s. we had the St. Louis Post Dispatch delivered every afternoon. I started with the funnies. Then in my teens, I started reading the sports page and occasionally the news sections because of Civics and Social Studies assignments.
The first newspaper I started reading on my own was the Chicago Tribune back in 1966 when I was going to ET School at Great Lakes Naval Training Center. I wrote my first letter to the editor and it got published! I was pretty proud of that.
When I moved out of my mom’s house I started getting the Post Dispatch delivered to my apartment.
When I moved to Atlanta back in 1985 I started getting the Urinal, which was the afternoon paper and “Covered Dixie like the dew”. No longer. Dixie is politically incorrect and the paper no longer has that wide a circulation any more.
The Urinal was the afternoon paper and was conservative. The Constipation was the morning paper and was liberal.
The two papers have long since merged and have gone consistently downhill. Lewis Grizzard and Celestine Sibley are long dead and they have found no one to replace either of them. The current writer is a joke.
The editorial page is a joke. They’ve fired the local op-ed writers and the only op-eds are in the Sunday paper. The reason given for no longer having national op-ed writers on a daily basis is all they did was “rehash the same arguments”. Of course, that doesn’t stop them from having the same tired liberal opinion of their cartoonist Mike Luckovich who rehashes the same I hate Trump bullshit every. During the week they only publish two letters to the editor a day.
They’ve trimmed the sports page and since most of the sports have become woke, it doesn’t take me long to zip through that section.
Even the funnies suck. There are a few good ones like Pearls Before Swine. Most of the rest can’t compare with comics like L’l Abner or Pogo.
The paper is not worth reading anymore and as soon as my current subscription is over my 35 year association with Atlanta newspapers will be over.
Sad.
