Monday, June 11, 2012

The inverted pyramid has left the building

More grim, specific news on the dearth and death of newspapers as we once knew them. Seems it's not good particularly for knowing what's happening in your own front yard.

". . . I think it’s entirely possible that the generations now ascendant will be, by and large, reasonably well-versed on national politics and totally, horribly ignorant of local affairs. Young people may have a better sense of what’s going on in Syria than in their state capital, let alone their city hall. If everyone in the country is reading the New York Times online, no one is keeping up with what’s happening in Lansing and Madison."

 I covered local and state politics for a newspaper 20 years ago. Even then, the vast majority of citizens had NO IDEA what their county commission or state house was up to. None. Truth be told, I knew only because a newspaper was paying me to know.

All politics is local. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss. Thus saith the Lord, and this old-school Lois Lane.

Or as the writer above puts it: ". . . without the sort of forced topical juxtaposition of a physical paper covering a community and the world, it’s easy to skip past the “unsexy” local news in favor of whatever stupid thing Michele Bachmann said today, can you believe it!"
 



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