I read the other day that the Star Ledger was going to stop publishing its print edition in February of 2025. Now, I don’t take the Star Ledger and haven’t for quite some time. I don’t even subscribe to the electronic edition although I am a subscriber to two newspapers - both online - as I truly believe that newspapers are essential to fair and free communications in this world.
The reason that the news hit me so hard had more to do with what I had discovered in the top of my closet, ironically just two days prior. While searching high and low for a missing Halloween shirt (don’t ask), I came across the box of “stuff” that I keep in the top of my closet. Among the miscellaneous stuff that one accumulates, I found several copies of seminal newspapers that marked several important moments in history.
There were two newspapers reporting the news of September 11, 2001 when the country was attacked and the World Trade Center was toppled. There were newspapers marking the election of Joe Biden as president, replacing the (in my opinion) dangerous Donald Trump. There were also newspapers marking significant sports events, such as the Mets winning the 2000 National League Championship (sadly, no New York Jets headlines - a topic for another post).
As I thought back to this pile of yellowing news print, I started to wonder - how will future generations learn about the major events of our time, if there is no written record of it? How can electronic news be archived so that those that are still to come can look back and see what was being reported about the major events of our time? (And in case you’re wondering, all of these entries are printed and saved for posterity - who knows how anyone would ever read these electronic musings in the future).
I know that producing a printed product every day is a great expense, and one that is not easy to accommodate for a newspaper company. But with the need to archive major events, is this something a newspaper can afford to not do?? I guess time will tell - and perhaps replica editions can be archived, much like the microfiche of my generation - but with the major events happening just around the corner, is this a good time to stop producing?
In the end, it’s our fault. We are the ones who stopped buying or subscribing to newspapers. We’re the ones that adopted the electronic medium with such gusto that the publishers had no choice. Can we turn back the clock? No. But should we?? A question our future generations will have to answer.
November 4, 2024
Ocean City, NJ
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