The Lost Joy of Newspapers

My connection to newspapers is very strong. No I wasn’t a journalist, I was a paper boy. I used to deliver the evening paper (The Oregon Journal), wearing my big canvas paper bag. Years later I drove a truck for the newspaper delivering bundles to grocery stores, machines, and other locations.

I used to read every edition of the newspaper while waiting to load out in my truck.

When I was a kid it was all about the Sunday paper and the comics section. The comic pages were in color and had their own section. Getting the comic section first, before anyone else was the best. It was still neatly creased and for whatever reason that made reading it better.

It was a short jump from there to the daily paper where there was an entire page of comics. Sure the daily comics were shorter, and in black and white, but everyday I had comics to read. I had so many favorites back then, BC, The Wizard Of Id, Dick Tracy, Gasoline Alley, … I even read Prince Valiant although he was only in the Sunday paper. When Doonesbury started I loved it and with it came other new topical comics like Bloom County.

From there, I started reading the Sports page, my father was a huge sports fan. By reading that section I felt like we had more to talk about, our favorite teams and players.

As I got older I read other sections, learning not just about Portland, but the world as well. Sunday mornings became special because we had this huge newspaper that you could read for hours. I was even browsing the “classic cars for sale” section in the classified ads.

As a teenager I discovered an “underground” newspaper called the Willamette Bridge. I could buy it on the street from hippie vendors and it only cost twenty-five cents, (I think). This was the “street” newspaper written by and for young people. Or so I thought. It was in the Willamette Bridge that I first saw the word “fuck” printed in a newspaper. That was amazing to my young mind.

After graduating from college newspapers still had an important place in my education. On weekends I would go down to our local store and pick up copies of both The Oregonian, and The New York Times. I wanted news from all over. Eventually I had a weekend subscription to The New York Times.

How many of you remember getting up on Sunday morning, making coffee, and kicking back for a couple hours reading the newspaper from cover to cover? And I was reading two newspapers! Back then I really felt like I was informed. It was a wonderful way to spend a Sunday morning.

When I visited Europe I loved sitting at an outdoor cafe reading The International Herald Tribune.

My how times have changed.

The Oregon Journal is long gone and The Oregonian is just a shadow of it’s former self. That’s what getting rid of writers and journalists will do. I haven’t picked it up in years, I wonder if they still have comics?

Now that billionaires have purchased most of the newspapers and media outlets we get our news from, it’s no longer the news. There have always been wealthy owners of newspapers/media who skewered the news for their own purposes. William Randolph Hearst was no different in his day then the Murdochs and Fox News, I mean, Fox Entertainment is today. They’re both full of shit, lying as much as possible, and telling their readers/viewers, that everyone else is lying.

Newspapers and Cable News Channels are no longer looked at as educating the public. They are cash cows, full of opinions, catering to a certain demographic, and actively dividing the public, just like our political leaders are doing.

I recently moved to a different county and my new library is less than a mile from my home. As I was signing up for a new card, the librarian was telling me all of the benefits I now have. One thing she mentioned is that I have access to newspapers from all over the country through their website and my computer. When I was younger that would have been so amazing.

I found myself telling her that I no longer read newspapers, now that they’re all owned by billionaires. I know I’ll never get the real news. I have expanded my reading to papers and periodicals from around the world.

At that moment I felt sad.

I no longer trust the media in this country. Both news and social media. Fox is the worst offender, their lack of objective journalism and the way they distort the facts, … Okay they don’t distort the facts, they blatantly lie to their viewers. I have no respect for Jeff Bezos, Patrick and Michele Soon Shiong, the Gannett Company, the Sinclair Family, Donald Newhouse, Robert Iger, and yes, the Murdochs along with people like Zuckerberg, Musk, and Google.

Does anyone remember when journalists were heroes for uncovering corruption at all levels of society?

I do.

Maybe my love of newspapers was misplaced? Maybe they’ve always been just as bad as they are now, but I don’t think so. I know many journalists who are/were dedicated to telling the truth and letting people know what’s going on, even if their owners or managing editors weren’t.

There are still some good news organizations out there doing great work. Most of them are non-profit organizations. And usually the only way to access them is on-line. I look for those organizations and do my part in helping support them. We need them now more than ever.

You know what I really miss? The anticipation of Sunday morning knowing that I would have a whole section of comics to read.

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