The week before September 7th, several things happened that I thought I should write about. Some of it I started on and then hit the delete key and did away with it. It was cathartic action. Now that is a great word isn’t it? Catharsis…from the Greek language meaning to cleanse and purge. A more up to date definition in Webster’s Dictionary is 2 a : purification or purgation of the emotions (as pity and fear) primarily through art b : a purification or purgation that brings about spiritual renewal or release from tension 3 : elimination of a complex by bringing it to consciousness and affording it expression.
It seems that many people need a little catharsis when it comes to politics and our present administration, and I am including myself in this so don’t everyone jump on my little wagon at once to start beating me in the head. It is no secret that I am conservative about a lot of things. It is also no secret that I did not vote for the present administration. That was my right the last time I checked that I could vote for whomever or against whomever and I have exercised that right many times since I was 18 years old.
Last week I received an e-mail calling me a self indulgent right wing leaning writer and one of my friends accused me of being racist when I made the statement that if I had younger children in school that I would probably not send them on Tuesday, when the POTUS will be speaking. I have read the speech and it’s all well and good. He isn’t saying anything that any parent, teacher or school administrator has not been saying for years. And for that matter, if more parents would take on more responsibility for their kids education, Mr. Obama would not feel the need to go on television to speak to the kids. The government is not a baby sitter. The government should not the one that is responsible to make sure a child gets a meal and gets their school work done. The government should not have to be the one that teaches you that you need to wash your hands when you go to the bathroom or to cover your mouth when you sneeze or to stay at home when you are running a fever. What I took issue with was the poorly worded agenda of lesson plans that were sent down the pike. The White House has even said that it was poor worded so I was not making anything up.
The fact that our president is of mixed race is not an issue with me. Or have people forgotten that he is of mixed parentage. He is a man. And apparently he is surrounded by people that need to go back to school and learn how to write things in a more non-threatening way. Mr. Obama’s plan to make a speech to students is not new – President George H.W. Bush did the same in 1991, in a move that was opposed by Democrats. So opposition to things that sitting presidents do really does cross over the party lines.
Then there is this health care reform. I have had times of no health care especially when I was a small business owner and my husband was without a job. We just held our breath and paid the bills and tightened up the belt until we didn’t have any more holes in the belt! Then we have had had health insurance that wasn’t worth a penny that we paid into it because it didn’t cover anything we needed it to cover. And then companies put caps on how much they will pay. So if you are in a bad accident or are hit with a catastrophic illness, you better learn to suck up on the pain and heal yourself from within because they will be sending your sick butt home.
Do we need health care reform? YES WE DO? Do we need the government to run our healthcare? HELL NO! Since when did the government do a good job at running a business? Just think back to Katrina? How well did they do with that? People are still living in limbo waiting for the government help on that one. The other problem I have with the House health care bill H.R. 3200 is the government agency that will be given the authority to implement and enforce will be the IRS. Just what we need.
Think I am flapping my right wing leaning self-indulgent conservative self about that? Look up the bill and read it. It’s close to 1000 pages and you read for yourself what your congress probably has not read. You will find out exactly what having a catharsis means then. And while you’re at it, call up your old teachers and thank them for having the patience to teach you how to read and think for yourself and for knowing when to wash your hands.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
The Demise of the Small town newspaper is at hand.
So my time as a writer for the Monitor is running out. The proverbial clock is ticking on the life span of the paper and the word has finally come down that when the clock strikes midnight of December 31 the Monitor Herald will become extinct. That is sad for a newspaper that is so old. And it’s sad for me and the other columnists that have been given the privilege of having our stories published week after week.
What exactly does a newspaper do anyway? What is its purpose in the grand scheme of things? To deliver the news to your doorstep…correct? Wrong! Perhaps decades ago that was the intent and purpose but the advancement of the electronic age took care of that. There is news to be found on every television station at most any time of the day now. There is the internet that gives even more up to date news information. The Newspapers are not in the business of selling you, the reader, the NEWS. They are about selling advertising and writers like me are just filling in white space between those ads.
That is a harsh thing for me to say about myself and other writers but it is the cold ugly truth. The consumers that buy newspapers don’t pay for news. They have never paid for the news. Newspapers make their money not from delivering the news but from delivering advertising on newsprint into people’s homes. Just like television stations don’t make money off of those weekly programs that we all love to watch and are addicted too. It’s those pesky ads that intrude upon our senses and plant the idea that we need to run to J.C. Penny’s and get some new linens for our beds or to go to Kroger for their 10 for 10 deals of the week. I used to work at both of the TV stations in our area and for a national advertising agency and I had to churn out creative story boards for commercials on a daily basis. It is a dog eat dog world in the world of advertising in both the video and print genre.
Now I can’t say what it costs to print a paper and deliver it to the paper boxes and to the post office but I dare say it’s a lot more than the .25 cents or .50 cents people have been paying. Think about it for a moment, and you will realize those paltry sums couldn’t come close to making up the cost of merely printing a newspaper and then delivering it by hand to a subscriber’s doorstep seven times a week, 365 days a year.
Nor can a company make money in 50-cent increments by sending employees out in gas-guzzling trucks down country roads each day or once a week distributing to hundreds of newspaper boxes over scores, perhaps hundreds, of square miles. I dare to offer that it may actually cost $25 to $40 dollars a paper to print and deliver just one paper that we have all had the luxury of paying about $21 to $28 dollars a year for.
I realized a few years back that times were getting tight with newspapers when they started going to a smaller type and a slightly smaller size and format. Little by little our newspapers and magazines have been shrinking. The comics, the way to lure younger people into reading a paper, started getting smaller. Then some papers, in the hopes that they would not offend anyone, started reporting what I call the ‘happy talk news’. Nothing too too controversial. After all, you don’t want to tick off the advertisers. The advertisers are the bread and butter of the papers. And I don’t want this to seem like I am attacking the businesse’s that buy advertising. Heavens NO! I used to be a business owner and I had to advertise to get new customers. I can’t begin to tell you how much I spent on print advertising trying to target my market.
Newspapers don’t have the comfortable monopoly position any longer. People get their news in many different ways now and that is what is leading to the demise of the smaller local papers. Young people don’t read any more like the past generations. Try as we might, it’s hard to grab the attention of some people unless its in a video format.
What will become of papers and journalists and writers in general? I don’t have a clue. I just know that I am a dinosaur that continues to evolve and I am not too technologically challenged. Perhaps the papers and reporters and journalists that survive will come out on the other side of the technology universe and be the better for it.
As for my writing, I may not be appearing in ink on newsprint for much longer but I will still have my internet blog and I thank the Monitor for giving me the venue to express my opinions. It has been a great learning and growing experience for me.
Now is anyone out there looking for a feature writer?
What exactly does a newspaper do anyway? What is its purpose in the grand scheme of things? To deliver the news to your doorstep…correct? Wrong! Perhaps decades ago that was the intent and purpose but the advancement of the electronic age took care of that. There is news to be found on every television station at most any time of the day now. There is the internet that gives even more up to date news information. The Newspapers are not in the business of selling you, the reader, the NEWS. They are about selling advertising and writers like me are just filling in white space between those ads.
That is a harsh thing for me to say about myself and other writers but it is the cold ugly truth. The consumers that buy newspapers don’t pay for news. They have never paid for the news. Newspapers make their money not from delivering the news but from delivering advertising on newsprint into people’s homes. Just like television stations don’t make money off of those weekly programs that we all love to watch and are addicted too. It’s those pesky ads that intrude upon our senses and plant the idea that we need to run to J.C. Penny’s and get some new linens for our beds or to go to Kroger for their 10 for 10 deals of the week. I used to work at both of the TV stations in our area and for a national advertising agency and I had to churn out creative story boards for commercials on a daily basis. It is a dog eat dog world in the world of advertising in both the video and print genre.
Now I can’t say what it costs to print a paper and deliver it to the paper boxes and to the post office but I dare say it’s a lot more than the .25 cents or .50 cents people have been paying. Think about it for a moment, and you will realize those paltry sums couldn’t come close to making up the cost of merely printing a newspaper and then delivering it by hand to a subscriber’s doorstep seven times a week, 365 days a year.
Nor can a company make money in 50-cent increments by sending employees out in gas-guzzling trucks down country roads each day or once a week distributing to hundreds of newspaper boxes over scores, perhaps hundreds, of square miles. I dare to offer that it may actually cost $25 to $40 dollars a paper to print and deliver just one paper that we have all had the luxury of paying about $21 to $28 dollars a year for.
I realized a few years back that times were getting tight with newspapers when they started going to a smaller type and a slightly smaller size and format. Little by little our newspapers and magazines have been shrinking. The comics, the way to lure younger people into reading a paper, started getting smaller. Then some papers, in the hopes that they would not offend anyone, started reporting what I call the ‘happy talk news’. Nothing too too controversial. After all, you don’t want to tick off the advertisers. The advertisers are the bread and butter of the papers. And I don’t want this to seem like I am attacking the businesse’s that buy advertising. Heavens NO! I used to be a business owner and I had to advertise to get new customers. I can’t begin to tell you how much I spent on print advertising trying to target my market.
Newspapers don’t have the comfortable monopoly position any longer. People get their news in many different ways now and that is what is leading to the demise of the smaller local papers. Young people don’t read any more like the past generations. Try as we might, it’s hard to grab the attention of some people unless its in a video format.
What will become of papers and journalists and writers in general? I don’t have a clue. I just know that I am a dinosaur that continues to evolve and I am not too technologically challenged. Perhaps the papers and reporters and journalists that survive will come out on the other side of the technology universe and be the better for it.
As for my writing, I may not be appearing in ink on newsprint for much longer but I will still have my internet blog and I thank the Monitor for giving me the venue to express my opinions. It has been a great learning and growing experience for me.
Now is anyone out there looking for a feature writer?
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