So, the Parade magazine that came with today’s San Francisco Chronicle has a cover story about Benazir Bhutto. Unfortunately, the magazine went to press before she was assassinated, so the story was all about how she was the U.S’s best hope against Al Qaeda, and that she was expecting to win the election on Tuesday. Just more evidence that newspapers are completely done.
Kevin Said,
January 6, 2008 @ 3:37 pm
Yay! The 4th estate is almost dead! Hooray for us!
I don’t mean to be a jerk, but I just don’t get the whole ‘man, newspapers suck’ routine that people like to throw around. Yes, it’s an antiquated distribution system. Yes, sometimes the time it takes to print and deliver the material means that the web or television are far better mediums for breaking news. But why can’t it end there? Why the celebration that newspapers are now starting to collapse under their own weight? Have we all forgotten how important newspapers are in journalism? Are you all just convinced that the sourceless, soulless, unfunded blogosphere will zoom in to replace newspapers? Or, are you just being careless, and forgetting that newspapers represent a fourth branch of government. That virtually every news story of true import that you read started in a newspaper investigation somewhere. That literally almost all of the important developments and information that we’ve learned about in the past 100 years came from the printed word, and the people that work hard to write it?
Again, I get my breaking news from the web too. But I also appreciate the beauty of the long form that I read in my printed version of the New York Times each weekend. Call me old-fashioned and make fun of me, I don’t mind. But Jesus, don’t do a little dance while you wait for newspapers to die – you just appear immature and ill-informed at best in my opinion.
JFP Said,
January 6, 2008 @ 8:26 pm
I’m hardly celebrating. I just find it ridiculous that the Chronicle still included this Parade magazine.
Kevin Said,
January 7, 2008 @ 2:12 am
Oh. Nevermind then.
Dagpotter Said,
January 7, 2008 @ 4:38 am
Hey, at least The Huntsville Times published an article today explaining why they ran it. It was important. Cheers.