The Slow Death of a Newspaper

 

These days, it really could be any newspaper.   But, today, I am speaking of the Los Angeles Times.

Since I was five years old, I've always been one to have a newspaper every single day.  When I was a kid, my father used to bring home the Night Owl edition of the NY Daily News.   It would hit newspapers the night before around 830PM.  Oddly enough, I can remember the back page would feature the first couple of innings of that night's Mets game.  

For me, the appeal of the daily newspaper was three fold.   The movie reviews and listings are what I used to learn how to read.  Then, of course, there were the comic strips.  And the baseball box scores and stats.

All through my years of high school and college and working in Manhattan, I always had a newspaper.  When I was a commuter, I'd have two each day for the train ride.   The Daily News going to work and then the New York Post going home.

So, years and decades later living in Los Angeles, nothing has changed.   I get the Los Angeles Times delivered every morning.  Admittedly, it has become a far left journalistic nightmare.  I've always said that we could have a devastating 7.5 earthquake and another story on a Trump indictment would knock the quake off the front page of the LA Times.

But still I get the paper.   For the movies.  For the baseball stories.  For the comics.   And no morning is complete without a Sudoku puzzle.

Of course, the paper over the years since COVID has gotten skinnier and skinnier.  The Sunday magazine...or roto gravure...is gone.  The Wednesday section devoted to food is history.  But, nevertheless, I keep getting for all the reasons cited above.

Two weeks ago, I had a hankering to look up a baseball box score to see how ex-Dodger Trea Turner was doing.  There was none.   Gone also in the sports pages were today's schedule and probable pitchers.  Over the next few days, I kept a lookout for this information.  Despite the Dodgers playing at 6PM...usually plenty of time for a game story to be filed...there was no hint of a score.   All the sports stories were feature-like.

I then realized the movie listings were also gone.   There was no way to see where "Oppenheimer" was playing.  The comics and Sudoku were there.  But little else.

I asked my college roommate about this.   He had a storied career working for several newspapers.  He's now a college journalism professor.  He would know.

Why no Dodger game story?

"It's because the press deadline is 5PM."

Huh?

"It's not considered a newspaper anymore.   It's really a daily magazine."

Oh.

Admittedly, all the information I was looking for can be found on-line.   But there was always something about that black ink rubbing off on your fingers.

No more.

Everything changes.  Not always for the good.  I looked through this morning's "magazine."  Well, at least, Dagwood is still fighting with Mr. Dithers.

Dinner last night:  Burger at Wood Ranch.