A crying shame

Today the StarTribune announced it is filing for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11.

While there are many detractors, most of them neo-cons who don't appreciate any story covered from any angle that isn't their own chosen spin, and while there are reasons to criticize any paper which is so politically correct it won't even print the name of the Cleveland baseball team (The Indians) - the fact is that papers and the press services supporting them, represent truly the final bastion of in-depth coverage. The simple tactile pleasure of sitting down with a paper and a cup of coffee is unmistakable and undeniable. The ability to retain the paper, or an article, and post its wisdom, its headline, to capture that moment in time, is unique.

Papers are dying in the United States - in part due to competition with on-line resources, certainly due to competition with television news, but more in part due to the shortening attention span of the public regarding news in general. They've also suffered somewhat of an 'identity crisis' due to the relentless, ultra-biased criticism of the monied right, and tried (vainly) to reinvent themselves as 'centrist' something those who will never see anything other than the ultra-right as centrist. I believe they moved away from their target market - toward a dumbed down - USAToday version of themselves, and so lost both their niche, and their identity.

While they may be white elephants - I believe that in the end, when all of the locals are gone, we will miss them terribly. We will think that it is a crying shame that they have passed, like the telegraph, into the ether of history.