Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Where's The Rest Of Me?

Just over a hundred years ago, newspapers were the entirety of "the media." Great thinkers, writers, and artists did time there. Some genuine legends were birthed there, or at least passed through from time to time. Ambrose Bierce, James Thurber, Ring Lardner, Dorothy Parker, Heywood Broun, Dorothy Kilgallen, George Herriman, Rube Goldberg, (and those are just the names that pop into my noggin in no actual historical order). There were scoundrels to be sure, and over-rich corporate dabblers as usual. The Donald Trump of the early 20th century was a media mogul named William Randolph Hearst. Only he didn't need to be POTUS – his influence elected and unelected them.

But then the cinema, the radio, television, and ultimately the internet and the wi-scape (in that order) took over as "the multi-media" evolved. Now, the printed newspaper is the family dog begging for table scraps. And some of the greedy scarfers at the table are just pretend media – trivia and satire pitched like real news – with ambiguous, cliffhangerish headlines. (Why have we developed a NEED for that?) The dog metaphor is even more apropos; why do I feel like we're about to be driven out to barren country and abandoned?

When I first got in, there were still (the last generation) of full-time illustrators & cartoonists making livings in the newspaper industry – people doing just that, not made to multi-task in other areas to justify their employment. Slowly emerged that miraculous little box that "made jobs easier," then "did part of the job for you," then "made you obsolete." I set down my pen and ink, after winning several awards following in the footsteps (so I thought) of those great illustrators of yesteryear. When the computer began its march to conquer, I jumped aboard thinking I'd be a part of the so-called revolution, not even realizing that I was self-hastening my own irrelevance over the long-term. Each and every digital expert-overseer that entered my professional life turned out to be part assassin. No wonder most of my office demeanor over the years was hot-headed and defensive.

It was an ever dimming shadow of the industry I only thought I'd joined... no one needed illustrators, or cartoonists, or "different thinkers" anymore. Only template tracers, mouse clickers, cut & pasters, copy-flow clerks. Proof-readers? No, Spellcheck – the employees don't spell. If they can, they're placed on remote desks and made to do that for publications in multiple counties. Saves each paper from having to hire a separate one. Now, even they are hired more and more overseas – and work for pennies. People who live a half a globe away – your town's number one source for "news" with minimal local navigation. Can't grieve forever, right?

We took a vital industry with a vested connection to the communities it served, as rooted in each as the police, fire and utility departments (a family member in print form, if you will) and turned it into a generic recycle product with pretend relevance and zero accountability brought to you by people who wouldn't know you from a striped polo shirt in a Lands End catalog... and could care even less. A Big Mac in print form.

People of those older generations I'd sometimes hear laughingly recall using newspaper for toilet paper – because toilet paper did not yet exist and that ironically gave the newspaper added value, beyond its publish date. Groucho Marx once complimented the now defunct New York World that it even smoked well, if one couldn't afford actual cigars. Today, some current editions are hardly worth outhouse use, off the press. In my 30+ years (did I hope against hope that it would get better if I persevered?) – this once great industry unraveled. And I allowed myself to unravel with it. The great thinkers and doers – literati, the adventurers with pens and ink and type presses – were all replaced by hedge fund brokers and real estate flippers – with their outsourced minions.

A newspaper job was once a goal. Newspapers had tangible value and made tangible profit. Today they offer an artifice of tangibility and the revenues reflect that emptiness. Yet, the sales department is forced to constantly raise the nose higher each quarter, in a year pointed at the ground like a plane out of fuel.

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