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Fans Of Printing Remind Us Of What's Lost
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Published: June 18, 2008
The American Amateur Press Association held its annual convention last week here in Tampa.
There weren't any parades, like two years ago when the Shriners were in town for their annual get-together. The bars in Ybor City weren't noticeably more crowded, and the city didn't have any additional cops on the street.
In fact, the closest thing to going wild and crazy came Saturday night when they announced the winners of the annual limerick contest at a banquet at the Howard Johnson Plaza downtown.
It's not that this isn't a fun-loving crowd. It's just that their idea of fun is setting type by hand onto small printing presses and sending little booklets filled with puns and short essays to their friends who do the same thing. They love not just the printed word but also how words are put into sentences and paragraphs.
What intrigued me was that this group, with its devotion to the printed word, has largely switched over to computers and desktop publishing. One member covered the convention on a blog.
On Saturday morning, they had a panel discussion on the future of newspapers and the printed word. I was there. When your paycheck is built around those sort of things, you show up.
Not The Best Of Times
These have not been the best of times in the newspaper business. The reality of a technological revolution in communication and a brave new world of blogs and BlackBerries, where you see people walking around with devices in their ears while seemingly talking into space, is enough to tell you the times they are a-changin'.
The discussion was gloomy enough. One of the panelists, former Tampa Tribune editor Al Hutchison, had asked for thoughts on the subject from writers and editors across the country. One reply: "I'm saddened what's happened to papers. They seem to have adopted a can't-beat-them-let's-join-them attitude with the 'them' being cable TV that features sensationalism and celebrities' misery. I see it on a daily basis. I have had to take at least 10 calls this week about the son of Hulk Hogan."
Army Of Semi-Literates?
Another former editor, Jim Head, who was among the more creative forces in journalism, wrote: "Young people no longer get their news from newspapers; sound bites have taken the place of hard copy news, and the army of semiliterates in the country grows at an astounding rate."
There was plenty more to be gloomy about, not just declining circulations but also the growing realization that it is not just that younger readers are getting their news elsewhere as it is that they aren't getting news at all.
Hutchison, I thought, summed up what we might be losing best when he used the word "context." That is what newspapers have provided: a thoughtful, organized context to the news instead of the scattered who-knows-where-it-came-from stories off the Net.
It could be that as we refine the online world of journalism, context, substance and accuracy will become hallmarks of our new electronic world. On the other hand, I remember in 1961 when then FCC Chairman Newton Minow said TV had become a vast wasteland. We would be hard-pressed to argue it has improved in almost half a century.
I wonder what he would think of the blogosphere.
Keyword: Otto Graphs, to read and comment on Steve Otto's blog.
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