Written Pyramids



New Yorker September 24, 2001



New Yorker September 17, 2001

I'm still not sure what an editor-at-large does, and I am sure that it varies from magazine to magazine, but these lines  from W's editor-at-large in a New York Observer item are shocking for any editor of a magazine--especially one that calls itself "a little bit edgier" than other big fashion magazines:

"I'm going to buy an iPad! I'm going to buy an iPad! I don't have a computer, so this is a big moment for me," continued Ms. [Lynn]  Hirschberg.

And how does she write her stories now without a computer?

"I don't type them," said Ms. Hirschberg. "I give a handwritten copy to someone who types them, who I pay."

Previous to her new gig, Hirschberg covered Hollywood for the New York Times. Even if glossy magazines are still doing fine in print alone (which I doubt, considering W is looking into iPad apps, and its parent company Conde Nast is not exactly living in the same lap of luxury it used to), any editor should be embarrassed to admit she does not use a computer in this day and age.

I'm a big fan of the New York Times. (" I confess, I lust after the Sunday Times," I once whispered to a friend, after spending six dollars on a newspaper. "Yeah, so do I," he said.)

I also like NYTimes.com, and since I get the Washington Post in print, I now usually read the Times on line, and buying it is a pleasure reserved for days when I need a boost, or when the front page is irresistible (as it was today, actually.) Anyway, being a fan of NYTimes.com, I agreed to fill out the Nielsen survey when it popped up on my screen, something I would normally just ignore (which leads me to wonder how helpful surveys like that are, if only loyal readers fill them out).

All was going well -- sections? I read a majority of them. Blogs? I read a lot of them How often? Seven days a week-- until I got to the part where they ask you to fill out things about yourself.

Behold:

Which of the following best describes the type of business, industry, or profession in which you work?

Click one.

		Accounting
		Advertising/Marketing/Public Relations
		Agriculture/Farming
		Architecture/Interior Design
		Arts/Entertainment/Broadcasting/Publishing
		Automotive/Aerospace
		Computer - Hardware/IT
		Computer - Software/Programming
		Construction/Labor/Trades Industry
		Engineering/R&D
		Fashion/Design/Modeling
		Finance/Banking/Investment Services
		Food Service/Lodging
		Healthcare/Medical
		Human Resources
		Insurance
		Law/Legal
		Manufacturing/Operations
		Non-Profit (not including Religion)
		Pharmaceutical/Biotechnology
		Raw Materials (Oil, Gas, Mining, Lumber, etc.)
		Real Estate Industry
		Religion/Ministry
		Retail/Wholesale
		Social Services
		Sports/Recreation
		Telecommunications Industry
		Transportation/Warehousing
		Travel/Tourism
		Utilities
		Other

That's right: 30 choices, and I had to choose "Other." Am I "Arts/Entertainment/ Broadcasting/Publishing"? I don't think so, and I'm not "Telecommunications Industry" either. This happens a lot on surveys, but it bothered me because I'm reading the NEW YORK TIMES and there is no place for print journalists. Sigh.

I don't know: it just seems a little mean to have an online-only publication mock newspapers. And seriously, high and mighty Slate, your parent company is now an education company first, and a media company second. Doesn't that make you a little sad?

This week's this American Life is titled "This I Used to Believe," based off of the "This I Believe" Web site, which lead me back to the blog post that has been gnawing, tickling the back of my brain and the back of my throat.

It's been almost two years ago since I graduated, two years ago since I wrote "the nervous feeling that it’s going to be a long time before I find another paper that will be able to make me cry and laugh."

In the last month, this blog has been dominated by my sappy, unhelpful cries to save the Boston Globe. I have a post in the works about my actual critiques of that newspaper and the role it could and should play. But for now, a quick reflection that while the Boston Globe has yet to make me laugh the same way my college newspaper did, it certainly has made me cry.

Last week my friend sent me this excerpt from a column on ESPN.com.

For the past few years, as newspapers got slowly crushed by myriad factors, a phalanx of top writers and editors fled for the greener pastures of the Internet. The quality of nearly every paper suffered, as did morale. Just two weeks ago, reports surfaced that the New York Times Company (which owns the Globe) was demanding $20 million in union concessions or it'd shut down the Globe completely. I grew up dreaming of writing a sports column for the Globe; now the paper might be gone before I turn 40. It's inconceivable.

I think this is a little hokey, but who knows, the ether of the Internet may actually save the Globe. As I said earlier, I love that paper (maybe I will treat all of my readers to the book review I wrote for the Globe in 1994. I was ten). I love it enough to participate in an eye-roll inducing "blog rally" so here goes:

"We view the Globe as an important community resource, and we think that lots of people in the region agree and might have creative ideas that might help in this situation. So, here's your chance. Please don't write with nasty comments and sarcasm: Use this forum for thoughtful and interesting steps you would recommend to the management that would improve readership, enhance the Globe's community presence, and make money. Who knows, someone here might come up with an idea that will work, or at least help. Thank you."

I love the Boston Globe. It has gotten thinner over the years, and it runs more wire stories, but it has some incredible local coverage and it is the paper for which I dreamed of working for years.

When I was in fourth grade, I had the thrill of seeing my photo and my words in the (now defunct) student pages. That 100-word book review was my first newspaper clip, and lead to a loyalty to that newspaper that has lead me to give sources who leak stories to them some slack, and has left me dreaming of working their even when their staff shrivels.

The New York Times Co. is considering closing the paper. Even though it seems the web staff can't code for their lives (that article is absurdly hard to read because of all the random symbols that seem to fill in for punctuation), please keep the paper alive.

Recently, I was at a speech, in which former LA Times Editor Dean Baquet spent some time lambasting the Tribune Company. I got some looks from my friends that seemed to say "remember when you were in love with your Tribune Company paper internship?" I do remember. It was an amazing summer. And the summer that Sam Zell bought the Tribune Company. Since then, there have been huge layoffs company-wide, page counts reduced, redesigns that put less news on the front page and (in the case of the Chicago Tribune, at least) a move toward tabloid for one of America's once glorious newspapers.

I honestly don't know who is to blame, and (in case there are any employers reading this, but it's true even for non-employers) if that Tribune Co. paper that I worked for (or several of the other ones for that matter) decided they wanted to hire me, I'd go back in a heartbeat.

But, this story about the Hartford Courant made me want to cry.

I don't know how high up the chain this decision was made. But, at least give journalists some respect. It's the least they deserve.

Baquet, now the Washington bureau chief of the New York Times urged his audience not to listen to the doom and gloom, and not to read Romenesko. But it's pretty darn hard in this day and age to keep on smiling and say "evolution" through gritted teeth.

I believe the evolution will come. I believe I will be part of it. Just don't leave journalists' dignity in the wake of change.

Maybe we should just hug journalists instead.

• 1991 The United States bombs Iraq. Iraq bombs Israel. We leave the radio on over shabbat in my house. In the basement. It is the only time I remember us doing such a thing. A girl from Tel Aviv joins my first grade class. I am overwhelmed with anxiety about my former babysitter who is living in Israel.
  
• 1992 An athlete from the former Soviet Union wins a gold medal. Countryless, the athlete watches the Olympic flag raised instead of her own.
  
• 1992 Bill Clinton runs against George Bush for president. In my third grade class, Bill Clinton wins the election, but Ross Perot gets a bunch of votes. People liked the size of his ears.
  
• 1993 Yitzchak Rabin shakes hands with Yasser Arafat. The entire elementary school goes to the gym to watch the broadcast of the signing of the Oslo accords. I was far back, and the televisions were small.
  
• 1995 O.J. Simpson is found "not guilty." I was home early that day. My British grandmother and I watched the verdict on television.
  
• 1995 Someone calls friend or family from the synagogue as soon as shabbat is over. There is crying. A man, standing in the hallway, near the women's bathroom, bends over. All I can see is his back and his bent shoulders. I hear a man telling another man: "Yitzchak Rabin is dead."
• 1996 A bus full of children dressed for Purim is blown up by terrorists. I am in sixth grade, in the hallway, wondering how someone could kill kids.
  
• 1998 I get a question about Monica Lewinsky's mother wrong on a current events quiz.
  
• 1998 I am in my new high school, on my way to the bathroom, discussing the fact that President Clinton has been impeached. I don't remember if that's when I was first told.

That's it for political and current event memories for the first half (and then some) of my life. There aren't even ten of them, and none of them have any relationship to newspapers.

There are memories later, once I was already reading the news, that have a newspaper tie in, but even those have more powerful image related to them. I saved the newspaper from September 12, 2001. In October 2001, I visited Ground Zero. Back in the hotel, I could smell the smoke on my clothes and my hair.

When Ilan Ramon died, I was still awake when the Jerusalem Post was delivered to my school in Jerusalem. But by then, I was older, more aware, and already thinking of becoming a journalist. By Israel I was getting New York Times headlines e-mailed to me so I could figure out when America was going to invade Iraq, and I'd have to go back home for a while. But what I remember more clearly, is that kids still dressed up as Ilan Ramon that Purim.

But the earliest memories have no newspaper headlines at all. I didn't even know if the Olympic memory was true until I looked it up for this post. I remember the ice, so it must have actually been pair skating.

I think about this after spending the evening fretting about middle school students in Washington D.C.

Asked why they don't read newspapers, they had the liveliest participation of the day.

"My grandfather reads the newspaper... I like to play video games."
"It's what old people do."
"Most of it is in black and white."
"It's boring, stupid, and hard to understand."
"It has nothing to do with my life."
"It's messy." (This was easily remedied by a quick session on how to fold a newspaper.)
"I already saw this on T.V."

It turns out that the Washington Post is hard for kids to understand. Especially kids who do not have newspapers in their houses. I fondly remembered reading the Student Page of the Boston Globe from third grade through middle school, so I assumed that my life was different: that I read the newspaper.

But then, when I look back on what I remember from elementary and middle school, it has almost nothing to do with the newspaper. It has everything to do with television, radio, or where I was standing when I heard the news.

It's going to be an uphill battle to teach these kids to put out any semblance of a newspaper. We're probably going to do it online: that's a reflection of the times. They struggle to read captions and headlines. Some of them rely on sight words and guess the end of a word. None of them can understand the headlines on a Washington Post feature. That's a reflection of their education (and a memo to the WPost features desk).

But, I'm going to stop grousing about how much more I read the newspaper. Because maybe the habits stuck, but television sure made for better memories.

I am going to teach them all to fold a newspaper. The one girl I taught looked at me like I showed her a magic trick.

Since I last wrote a "death of newspapers" post, the world of print seems to have thrown up its hands and taken a plunge into the depths of who-knows what.

• The Chicago Tribune declared bankruptcy, throwing the fates of America's most respected newspapers into question.
• The New York Times used its own brand new building as collateral on a loan.
• The Detroit newspapers decide home delivery is a thrice a week option
• Small town newspapers close their doors.
• Washington bureaus from papers all over the country continue to shrink or disappear
  

A year ago on this blog, I defended the future of newspapers. They still seemed viable. The rumors of their demise seemed greatly exaggerated. But, when the dust settled from the election and the recession hit papers, rumors of the demise of print seem realistic at best.

I could fill this blog with sob stories, or with worries that storied newspapers will tell their last.

But, despite the obvious snark in the Onion article, which declared "Dying Newspaper Trend Buys Nation's Newspapers Three More Weeks," there is a legitimate truth. Newspapers cover the death of newspapers, and while I might look on with horror and desperately try to suppress the panic that comes from watching my plans grow vague and hazy, I have to admit, it's a great story.

I get to watch--and be part of-- the evolution of something that, I believe, will be, ultimately, fascinating.

There is a real need for news. Whether it be to revel in victory (photo essay of people waiting in line for the Nov. 5 papers to follow) to follow, or mourn a tragedy, or to understand the intricacies of scandal and failure, there is a need for reporters, writers, and editors.

Despite our low job approval ratings, I'm not sure readers are ready to give up on journalist-driven news and opinion all together.

The question is, how to make sure people see that, and how to profit off of the way readers consume their news.

There is an answer. There has to be. And this evolution is something that I will tell my children about. Not only so they can laugh at their old-fashioned mother, but also so that they understand the evolution of industry that will be shaping, exposing, and probing their world.

Watching my industry -- or any industry for that matter -- struggle is painful. But I can't help thinking about the Phoenix and how the bird, who combusts and then is born from ashes enchanted me when I first discovered it in E. Nesbit's books.

In reading parts of the book, this line seems particularly apropos:

"It was felt that Robert, as the pet of the Phoenix, ought to have the last melancholy pleasure of choosing the materials of its funeral pyre."

It seems to me that the reporters, the ones who are still proud to call themselves ink stained wretches, should be the ones who figure out how to let this incarnation of news die, and how to facilitate the next one rising from the ashes. Or, to keep the analogy withing this particular phoenix mythology, they should be the ones to build the pyre, but then to throw the golden egg back into the flames.

The death and rebirth of news might be one of the biggest story of my time. And I'm glad that it's one in which I can participate.

Increasingly, my gung-ho journalism friends are becoming disillusioned. Not with the world. That's old news. It only takes a little bit of time reading, writing, and reporting about the world to become disillusioned with it.

Rather, it's our starry-eyed attitude about the power and resilience of the industry we love and believe in that is fading fast.

Perhaps there is some comfort from the words of The New York Times' Timothy Egan, written on the real independence day (a fact my sister, born two days before her official due date, likes to point out).

The blog post also arrived on the day the LA Times announced the paper will face 150 layoffs and higher-ups wrote in an e-mail: "But it is absolutely crucial that as we move through this process, we must maintain our ambition and our determination to produce the highest-quality journalism in print and online, every day" thus making me want to throw up, because there is only so many times you can say "do more with less" without asking for accusations of "Bull Shit" from the people who still desperately want to believe in the viability of print.

On the lobby wall of the newspaper where I got my first reporting job are the Thomas Jefferson words that journalists like to trot out as Independence Day nears:

"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

Of course, Jefferson also said the only reliable truths in newspapers were the advertisements, and that he was happiest when not reading the papers.

But as to his iconic quote, it's no secret that we're trending toward the former. And anyone who cheers the collapse of the newspaper industry should consider why Jefferson put aside his distaste for the vitriol and nonsense of the press for the larger principle of healthy democracies needing informed citizens....

My lament this Fourth of July is to ask readers to see newspapers as not just another casualty in the churn of business. Sure, reporters say stupid things and write idiotic stories. Everyone stumbles. But on its best days, a newspaper is a marvel of style and wit, of small-type discoveries and large-type overstatements, a diary of our deeds.

We may still prove Jefferson's preference wrong: perhaps a nation can function without newspapers. But it would be a confederacy of dunces.

Sigh. Sometimes, it's like believing in fairies.

One of the saddest things ever (relatively speaking) .
A blog that maps cuts in newspapers as they happen.

My doctor's first job was as a copy boy in Australia at Rupert Murdoch's first paper. At an appointment, he warned me "whatever you do, do not work for Murdoch." I promised him I would not, an easy promise especially because of my loyalty to my friends then working at the New York Daily News. But first with the Journal, and now with Newsday, it's looking like a harder and harder promise to keep.

But this is just sad. Reading WSJ Manging Editor Marcus Brauchli's resignation letter made me queasy. And Portfolio magazine did not help the nausea by parsing it.

My roommate and I together subscribe to seven magazines. In subjective, increasing order of snobbery they are:

USWeekly (hers), New York (mine), Time (hers), Newsweek (mine), National Geographic (mine, a recent gift from my dad), National Review (hers), and The Economist (mine).

That's not counting The New Yorker, which I cannot bring myself to subscribe to because of the sheer amount of reading material that comes to our door every week, but which I buy at news stand price about twice a month. And of course there is the daily dose of the Washington Post and its weekly magazine, which is supposed to be part of our rent, but which I have been buying daily at newsstand price because there is something wrong with the delivery system.

Many of these magazines end up in our bathroom, prompting a friend to quip "there is so much good reading material in there. I didn't want to leave." That same friend, on a different visit, came out of the bathroom and said "Uh, not to judge, but you have USWeekly in there." To which the other friend visiting with her responded "I was a lot more concerned about the National Review." (Side note: The New York Times, ran a long and well written obit of the National Review founder, William F. Buckley, today. It says that he may have died in the middle of writing a column, That's incredible).

In its defense, USWeekly is on a "must read magazines" compiled by a former EIC of my college newspaper who is currently writing for Fortune. He put it on there, because like it or not, celebrity journalism (I resisted the scare quotes) is here to stay, and USWeekly does what it does well. But I would not go so far, as a friend recently did when asking a question to the Executive Editor of the Washington Post, to call it an "arts magazine."

Anyway, all of this musing was sparked by this quote from Overheard In New York:

"Chick: My life has really changed since moving to New York. Like, in L.A. I use to read Us Weekly, and now I read The New Yorker."

Ha.

It hurts less.

Thanks Mother Goose and Grimm.

I am used to my friends who work for or have worked for newspapers, rallying around newsprint, but I was pleased to hear someone who does not, and will never, work for a paper say:

The Washington Post recently announced that the newsstand price of a daily paper would increase from 35 cents to 50 cents. For all the naysayers who spend their days decrying the fall of printed matter this surely seemed like another proof, another "you see?" moment.

But before we all rally around the 15 cents as a sign that the Post is faltering and bringing the news industry down with it, let's just think for a second about the other Post, the one that deserves a whole lot fewer accolades. That would be the New York Post. The one that momentarily brought its prices up to 50 cents before caving to the merciless teasing of The New York Daily News who spent a week at the 25 cent price and scared the bejeezus out of the Post. That was a 25 cent increase, which would have made a tabloid paper cost 15 more cents than the acclaimed and famed Washington Post, which is notably still 75 cents cheaper than the very-expensive New York Times. People usually have to pay more for quality products. Why should that be any less true for the Post? I would gladly stick an extra dime and nickel in the machine for my Post if I didn't get it for free already. And the most encouraging part? People are still subscribing to the Post, just not buying it off the newsstands as much. And newsstand sales is not the most important source of revenue for the Post. In short, I remain stubbornly optimistic, even if a Post reporter that I know is worried about encouraging bright-eyed little girls to go into journalism because she doesn't know what the industry will look like in 10 years. Still, I believe in the future of newspapers.

...Sort of. It's also pretty sad:

Exhibit A:


Exhibit B:

OK. Maybe Wiley Miller just is skeptical of the media, but maybe he's just truthful. Especially in the first one.

Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller, May 11 and April 18 and respectively

Boston's Metro (the newspaper. The subway system in Boston is called the T.) ads make me nervous. Metro is not a good paper because it has to make all of its news bite-sized regardless of how complicated it is. Readers will only hold on to the paper for as long as it takes them to get off the T (which, in Boston, could be quite some time) and so all the news gets essentially boiled down to briefs. Is that news? I'm going to be really sad if Metro is the only type of news that fits my life. Is that life? I'm not one for waking up early in the morning, but I still relish the idea of a newspaper and a cup of copy before work (or even sneaking a peek at the newspaper once you get to work). Is putting out that paper newspapering? Can't you find time to sit down with a real newspaper? Please?