Something's Missing

I feel uninformed.
For the past ten days or so I have had limited access to newspapers.  Oh, they're around but I have had little time for them.  Unpacking has occupied most of my days and,  though I have planned to at least scan a newspaper daily, it just hasn't happened.  I have checked email and glanced at a few websites but sitting down to read a paper has not been in my 24 hour job description lately.

In place of looking at newspapers I have attempted to keep myself informed via the Internet as so many of my friends and certainly my children claim to do.  It doesn't work.  Anyone who tells you they "read the news on line" is yanking your chain.  Sure, you can pick up a smattering of important information but you're kidding yourself if you think you have a clue as to what is really going on.  The Internet and electronic journalism in general is geared to exceedingly low attention spans and, more often than not, is driven by an "if it bleeds it leads" agenda.  Also, there is no doubt in my mind that most of what passes for reporting, whether intentional or not, leans to the left politically.  I spent forty years in the broadcast business and witnessed it firsthand.

Today I started getting my newspaper fix anew.  My copy of the Spokane Spokesman Review landed on the deck of our new home in Coeur d' Alene, Idaho and I read it from front to back.  Most of the local stories had no meaning for me but it's good to once again be in the know with regard to national and international events.  The written word still reins supreme when it comes to comprehension.  The Spokesman-Review's Op/Ed page is, in keeping with most of American journalism, decidedly liberal but my Wall Street Journal and Investors Business Daily will be here tomorrow to balance out the equation.

Too many cities have local papers that are dying or are merely a shadow of what they once were.  It's tragic.  For keeping well informed, nothing beats the printed word.