skippy the bush kangaroo: "everything changes" is just the coward's way of saying "everything dies"

Thursday, February 26, 2009

"everything changes" is just the coward's way of saying "everything dies"

skippy notes w/sadness that the morning paper of his childhood growing up in denver colorado is closing its doors. rocky mtn news:

the rocky mountain news publishes its last paper tomorrow.
rich boehne, chief executive officer of rocky-owner scripps, broke the news to the staff at noon today, ending nearly three months of speculation over the paper's future.

"people are in grief," editor john temple said a noon news conference.

but he was intent on making sure the rocky's final edition, which would include a 52-page wraparound section, was as special as the paper itself.

"this is our last shot at this," temple said at a second afternoon gathering at the newsroom. "this morning (someone) said it's like playing music at your own funeral. it's an opportunity to make really sweet sounds or blow it. i'd like to go out really proud."

boehne told staffers that the rocky was the victim of a terrible economy and an upheaval in the newspaper industry.

"denver can't support two newspapers any longer," boehne told staffers, some of whom cried at the news. "it's certainly not good news for you, and it's certainly not good news for denver."

denver was one of the last cities in america w/more than one daily newspaper. now all the news will be found in the redoutable denver post, the evening establishment.

skippy liked the rocky mtn. news, mainly for its easy to handle book-like fold, which made it easy to read on the bus or anywhere else, w/o the extra hassle of more folds and re-folds to hold it in a convenient reading fashion.

and when skippy was reading papers, a dose of news in the morning w/coffee was a great way to start the day.

rip rocky mtn. news.

posted by skippy at 9:42 PM |

3 Comments:

I am ambivalent...
I do wish there was a save for print...but you know, I don't really see one coming. At least not in the present form..... I think it Might survive as some "Public" service, possibly as some "endowment funded" organ...but I am fairly certain that mankind will not be returning to the days of morning paper and coffee....
I can't say I see newspapers lasting much further than the next twenty five years or so..and not that long in their present form...
It's just not the direction we are collectively going... we are all going to the "collection of tubes" for our news and that indeed is where I think the surviving "Newspapers" going also and if they do it will likely be as some sort of customer loyalty / subscription type service.
I asked Steve Wozniak what he thought about the direction we were going with publishing / electronic publishing...and he gave me an answer that I didn't fully appreciate at the time ..this was about six years ago....he said, "It is all dependent on Bandwidth and how it is distributed and who controls the distribution..."
There was more...but the crux of it is..there is too much easily available / instantly acquired / readily updated / accurate information out there for FREE.
So Newspapers as they are?? Probably going bye-bye this decade.. Newspapers as a concept?? Probably gonna last twenty years before being completely replaced by some type of full immersion / auditory / visual / physical feedback thingy come along and totally ensnares about half the human race with the porn applications that it will obviously be developed for... but there will be news also...and it will be like you are actually standing there..
The experience of holding a printed /folded/ publication and just quietly reading it will become the domain of eccentric old rich guys and people with strong aversions to pornographic content.

commented by

Essaress ; Prior of the F.C.F.J., (C), 10:25 PM PST

Skippy is correct. The format was a delight and I read and subscribed to it off and on over the years.

Never the less the Rocky and other papers that have already failed and those that will fail in the future have only themselves to blame and I do not feel for them only for those behind the scenes who have lost their jobs.
LINK

commented by

One Fly, 7:48 AM PST

Sadly it seems we're about to lose our two Seattle papers here. They have faded over the years from their former selves victims of the internet. I think we'll remember them like the buggy whips of the turn of the last century.

commented by

Demeur, 10:59 AM PST

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