The Glendale News-Press died today along with the La Canada Valley Sun and The Burbank Leader. That’s a blow for local press coverage. Small circulation papers are succumbing to the COVID-19 pandemic.
I can only hope The Los Angeles Times hangs in there. Have you looked at it lately? Anemic. With business shut down, there’s no advertising revenue. That’s their life blood.
The pandemic only accelerates a trend that’s been going on for years. Newspapers have half the circulation they once did. When I go out to the foot of my driveway to pick up my paper, where I used to see up and down the street a similar paper waiting for all the neighbors, I now see none.
Is it a generation thing? A Baby Boomer thing not being passed down? Maybe. My kids get their news from their phones. My middle schooler uses Reddit.
I lament the loss. I’ve been doing a lot of lamenting lately: golf; Descanso Gardens; Jones’ Coffee house; life in general.
But newspapers are a big one.
It’s one of the habits I adopted from my dad. He started his day fetching The New York Times off the driveway. There was very little talk at the breakfast table as he lost himself behind the paper.
My paper was the New Jersey Bergen Record, an afternoon paper – remember those? Anyone? It had great high school sports coverage. And it was a great day when I got a headline over a game I pitched.
I started writing pieces for The New York Times New Jersey section while I was in seminary. And when I left the ministry, I penned a column for The Sacramento Union – now in bankruptcy – called “Worship Watch.” I reviewed church services. Don’t laugh. It was a great gig. In Hawaii, I was an arts critic for West Hawaii Today.
But it wasn’t until I got married and bought a house here in Glendale that the daily newspaper ritual returned. Hey, I’ve got a driveway, let’s put a newspaper on it. Now I get two! The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times.
Back in the day, it was a paper boy who delivered the news. That was a classic kid job. I even did it – for one week. I forget how I got the supply. My father must have helped me. But I do remember having them spread around the living room floor, then carefully tri-folding each one in a way I could tuck one end into the fold so it wouldn’t flip open, then cramming them into my canvas shoulder bag and heading out on my bicycle. There were no automatic sprinklers at that time shooting off at six in the morning, so I didn’t have to put them in plastic bags.
Now it’s some guy in his beat up car zig zagging up the street and flicking the bagged papers out the window.
With local coverage, I got to enjoy reading about my son’s track exploits, and, of course, I clipped every article and put them in a scrapbook. Hopefully, one day, Dylan will appreciate the archive. He can show it to his kids. One writer in particular, Leonard Coutin, followed his entire school career and I so appreciated his work and attention to my son. He was a one man show. I’d spot him at every track meet with his baseball cap turned around, lugging around his camera on the field, angling to get the best shots and then catching the runners post race for an interview.
So will newsprint become a thing of the past? This year I finally started reading the newspaper online when I was out of town. I appreciated that, but staring at a screen doesn’t carry the same tactile satisfaction of a crisp paper in my hands.
I sit back, gaze at the verdant hills and sigh.