Bring back the broadsheets . . but for the distribution problem. We no longer have town squares, teeming streets, factory gates at closing time, malls are dead. . ..
How true. it really is a huge problem. People are so scattered and decentralized now and even if you managed to bring them together, how to get them to put down their phones?
Now I will say, there was an inspiring rally and march against the US/Israeli genocide in Gaza. Dec. 9, in Madison, WI. About a 1,000 people came together. A good mix of people, with many young folks.
I did a post on it with several photos, feel free to use/share/pass along any, if you wish:
Decentralization is one way newspapers were destroyed starting in the 90s. They sold off downtown property, built new offices that silo’d workers, who heretofore had been mixing and mingling as a common workforce, and had started along the classism road with the “professional” journalists who cried when someone marked “stet” on their copy cuz they thought that meant delete. They had computerized the ITU out of existence by then, who were de facto proof readers, as the greatest bunch of trivia experts and spelling bee champs ever. So these “professionals” didn’t know the town, they didn’t understand the majority worker demographic of the town, they didn’t think they needed unions, so here we are, fed garbage by ignorant brats. I cannot read major newspapers or websites and imagine for a moment any of it is journalism. The NYT reads like it’s written by crybaby center-of-the-universe tweener influencers. Once literate and worldly magazines read like middle school papers. You could hide behind newspaper pages in a hotel lobby, both arms outstretched, every column filled by armies of wordsmiths. Losing them has made this a nation of fools.
I started in the 70s as a photoengraver, and wept at the changes.
Agreed. I was at The Albuquerque Tribune from 1978 to about 1996 as, first editorial cartoonist then once I got kicked out of that for cartoons I was doing on Reagan's bloody Central American wars/drug operation, became an outdoor writer and environmental writer.
When I came into the newsroom I had no real journalism experience. The newsroom was filled with working class people who had worked their way up from small papers and even the loading dock or press room. It was considered a trade. I was in that first wave of "All The President's Men" young college-educated "professional" journalists. I learned a lot from those old writers. By the time I left, it was pretty much all college educated journalists and it was now a profession and very different vibe ... far more corporate. I was lucky I got a taste of the old school journalism
I like your pages and art. Yes, it was a trade with self-imposed ethics, and attracted the skeptical anti-authoritarians. Not cynics, because they’d just be fuming, and not investigating in hopes of sending the grifters packing. Fun reading about Mauldin and Oliphant. You suffered the consequences of censorship early…I thought for a while it was individual cranky editors rather than the dominant will, since alternate critical voices were plentiful, with a range of voices still available. Then papers were bought up, stripped to their bones, and collapsed.
Journalism has always had a checkered past and partisan bias was nothing unusual, but back in the day when towns of any size would have 2, 3, 4 or more papers and unions published papers and magazines most households subscribed to more than one paper, a variety of news and opinion could float about.
I grew up in a home with the GOP-leaning Wisconsin State Journal in the morning and the very left Capital Times in the afternoon (great comics page). Both papers had political cartoonists.
In some of my reading on the CIA and abuses of the FBI, it it was shocking to see how many reporters and columnists ran stories by the agencies for approval/editing and many articles were planted by the agencies with journalists happy to oblige ... just like now.
Thank God for alternative platforms like Substack. Let's hope we can hold on to them. I'm looking for a mimeograph machine at a garage sale, just in case!
Bring back the broadsheets . . but for the distribution problem. We no longer have town squares, teeming streets, factory gates at closing time, malls are dead. . ..
How true. it really is a huge problem. People are so scattered and decentralized now and even if you managed to bring them together, how to get them to put down their phones?
Now I will say, there was an inspiring rally and march against the US/Israeli genocide in Gaza. Dec. 9, in Madison, WI. About a 1,000 people came together. A good mix of people, with many young folks.
I did a post on it with several photos, feel free to use/share/pass along any, if you wish:
https://mark192.substack.com/p/massive-madison-protest-called-out
Decentralization is one way newspapers were destroyed starting in the 90s. They sold off downtown property, built new offices that silo’d workers, who heretofore had been mixing and mingling as a common workforce, and had started along the classism road with the “professional” journalists who cried when someone marked “stet” on their copy cuz they thought that meant delete. They had computerized the ITU out of existence by then, who were de facto proof readers, as the greatest bunch of trivia experts and spelling bee champs ever. So these “professionals” didn’t know the town, they didn’t understand the majority worker demographic of the town, they didn’t think they needed unions, so here we are, fed garbage by ignorant brats. I cannot read major newspapers or websites and imagine for a moment any of it is journalism. The NYT reads like it’s written by crybaby center-of-the-universe tweener influencers. Once literate and worldly magazines read like middle school papers. You could hide behind newspaper pages in a hotel lobby, both arms outstretched, every column filled by armies of wordsmiths. Losing them has made this a nation of fools.
I started in the 70s as a photoengraver, and wept at the changes.
Agreed. I was at The Albuquerque Tribune from 1978 to about 1996 as, first editorial cartoonist then once I got kicked out of that for cartoons I was doing on Reagan's bloody Central American wars/drug operation, became an outdoor writer and environmental writer.
When I came into the newsroom I had no real journalism experience. The newsroom was filled with working class people who had worked their way up from small papers and even the loading dock or press room. It was considered a trade. I was in that first wave of "All The President's Men" young college-educated "professional" journalists. I learned a lot from those old writers. By the time I left, it was pretty much all college educated journalists and it was now a profession and very different vibe ... far more corporate. I was lucky I got a taste of the old school journalism
If you are interested, you can check out my background and see one of the cartoons that got me booted from the editorial page on my website DeMOCKracy.ink ... https://demockracy.ink/the-power-of-the-political-cartoon/
I like your pages and art. Yes, it was a trade with self-imposed ethics, and attracted the skeptical anti-authoritarians. Not cynics, because they’d just be fuming, and not investigating in hopes of sending the grifters packing. Fun reading about Mauldin and Oliphant. You suffered the consequences of censorship early…I thought for a while it was individual cranky editors rather than the dominant will, since alternate critical voices were plentiful, with a range of voices still available. Then papers were bought up, stripped to their bones, and collapsed.
Thanks!
Journalism has always had a checkered past and partisan bias was nothing unusual, but back in the day when towns of any size would have 2, 3, 4 or more papers and unions published papers and magazines most households subscribed to more than one paper, a variety of news and opinion could float about.
I grew up in a home with the GOP-leaning Wisconsin State Journal in the morning and the very left Capital Times in the afternoon (great comics page). Both papers had political cartoonists.
In some of my reading on the CIA and abuses of the FBI, it it was shocking to see how many reporters and columnists ran stories by the agencies for approval/editing and many articles were planted by the agencies with journalists happy to oblige ... just like now.
Thank God for alternative platforms like Substack. Let's hope we can hold on to them. I'm looking for a mimeograph machine at a garage sale, just in case!