"I sense a great disturbance in the force," says Obi-Wan Kenobi after the destruction of Alderaan.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200901/new-york-times
I think I'm probably in the minority of people in my generation, but I grew up with the print New York Times, at least the Sunday edition. My dad would get it every Sunday afternoon at Mr. Paperback, and I'd devour the Week in Review, the Arts & Leisure section, the magazine & the book review. I'd actually make myself read through portions of business & the front section, travel, and style before getting to the good stuff. Sometimes, I'd even get to walk down to Mr. Paperback and get the Times myself (and get lost for three-quarters of an hour in the stacks).
I suspect that one of the reasons I aced my verbal SATs was because I spent several Sunday afternoons reading the Times, learning new vocab and getting used to a professional style of essay writing instead of doing my homework.
Heck, if you look at the timeline--Greg starts reading New York Times at age 12, Greg develops interest in film, theatre, and politics--it could be that my obsessions were partially shaped by the Times. Sure, some part of this attachment may be due to the fact that my mom was published in the paper, but that wasn't until 2000.
For all of my complaints about Wen Ho Lee (wrongfully imprisoned thanks in part to the Times) or trumped-up coverage over Whitewater, or Judith Miller going to prison to protect those who endangered national security and having everyone talk about it like she was some sort of heroic whistleblower instead of, say, the equivalent of a chief lieutenant to Al Capone, the Times is still the paper of record, and for all the justified complaints about their theatre criticism (read Time Out New York for a NY publication that really knows how to engage, write about, and support a theatre community while still being honest about the quality of shows), I don't think there's any toher single print publication that combines the caliber of reporting, feature writing, arts writing, opinion, and explanatory journalism under one roof. The Washington Post lost its luster with their out-of-step editorials, the L.A. Times didn't cover the writers' strike fairly, even the New Yorker, though I love it, is way too cosmpolitan.
So it's with a mounting sense of dread that I read this article in the Atlantic. I don't subscribe to the Times only because I can't afford it, being underemployed right now… and also because I can't deal with the paper buildup. Hirschorn seems to think that investigative reporting will be fine because it will have to "justify itself." Uh, no. Reporting is reporting, Mike. And that's the problem--sometimes reporters have to follow dead ends, and sometimes the subject matter itself is just boring--but things need to be entered into the public record by an objective source. And furthermore, it's not as if investigative reporters know in advance which pieces are going to strike gold.
The fact that no major media outlet has hired Greg Palast doesn't speak well for investigative reporting's future, in my view. So, no, I'm not so sanguine as Hirschorn about the impending fall of the Times. (It may yet be averted, but I believe that the future of journalism in general depends on some form of paying content. If I were the Times, I'd start charging again for the website--the Wall Street Journal does it.) But really, we as a society need to decide that good journalism, and good arts criticism, and good local news coverage, are things worth paying for.
So pay up.
The importance of reading
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