conversation is an engine

Wow—You Own a “Copy”?

As I write another check for the rapidly-shrinking StarTribune, I’m reminded how our lives will be diminished by the absence of the printed daily news. I see this day coming. I look at news aggregators all day on my computer and I am thankful for the information. But there’s something about settling into a chair at the end of the day with the funnies—a computer screen just doesn’t duplicate the experience. A Pocket PC screen certainly doesn’t come close. Makes me sad.

I was showing the gorgeous San Francisco Panorama to a journalism professor recently. It is a kind of newspaper on steroids. Fabulous writers. Intriguing topics. Big old art and photos. It will be big (broadsheet: 15 by 22 inches), full (380+ pages) and pricey (I thought I read it was $35, but now I can’t find the reference).

In short: a luxury. Kind of like The New Yorker (which I ordered recently only because I had a gift card), only more so and originating from a different coast.

Was print always a luxury? Maybe. But the daily paper never really felt that way. It was always the way we saw what was going on in the world, even if we understood it was as subjective as anything touched by humans. That’s all changing. I suppose there will come a point where the newsprint dropped on our porch at 5:30am every day will just not be worth it. I’m hanging on, but it’s feeling like a luxury, which binds it to the question: “Do we need this?”

So far the answer is still “Yes.”

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