I knew American newspapers were vanishing in front of my eyes, but still thought they had some staying-power left. I have seen their decreasing availability across Our Country, consistently for several years. In my private medical office, I subscribe to numerous print magazines. I have watched the thickness of each magazine (we receive over 30) gradually decrease, during the same time frame. Some of them have ceased publication, i.e., gone out of business.
Yes, dear readers in Our Town and far beyond, the day of print media, be it newspapers, magazines, books, or whatever, is certainly on a downward slippery slope. I do not think they will vanish into thin air over time, and be placed in the Smithsonian's ancient history museum, but they definitely are decreasing in size and numbers. When I received my undergraduate news-editorial journalism degree from Oklahoma State over 50 years ago, I never thought in my wildest dreams, the major part (print) of my OSU education would be fighting daily for its ultimate economic survival! Wow.....
We all know the technology explosion created by the internet and the entire computer age has lead to the vanishing situation involving all things printed. Heck, recently I was in an office in Our Town, reading a statewide newspaper, when a 50ish-age lady says to me, "I see you're reading a newspaper! I never see anyone with one of those anymore", Her unusual remark to me made me think I was certainly a surviving dinosaur. Another brief thought I had was, "has reality passed me by?"
So, for me, the fading away of the newspaper parallels the vanishing of the public telephone. I certainly was one of the last to own a cell phone. I had put off having one until the absolute 11th hour. However, since I have always traveled a great deal, I experienced 3 similar unpleasant episodes when I was away from home, that caused me too much personal anxiety to tolerate. I needed to communicate with someone each occasion, and could not locate a working, public telephone anywhere close to my physical locations. After the 3rd bad experience ,my bride, Lady Deborah, bought a new cell phone, and she gave me her older one as a hand-me-down. And, yes, I have grown to like my little electronic telephone over the years, but work very hard mentally trying hard not to feel like I can't take a breath, without checking my cell phone. My bride and I recently made an entire weekday afternoon trip to the Oklahoma City Apple store to upgrade our units, mostly for the incredible cameras the small devices now possess.
As noted last week, Ms. Debbie and I just returned from our first cruise back after no cruises during the worldwide pandemic isolation. Well, being the newspaper junkie I have always been, I was on an absolute mission to find a USA Today newspaper in one of the 3 eastern Caribbean ports-of-call we visited during our weeklong adventure aboard the gigantic RCI Harmony of the Seas. Search, and search and search some more, walking many blocks in the port towns, I could NOT find a copy to purchase. I asked several local people where I might locate a newspaper, and some of them looked back at me like I was from another planet. Oh, and their answers were "no". Fortunately, I had taken several older newspapers with my packed luggage for the cruise, so resorted to reading them on-board the vessel. Therefore, no timely news was read, but it was still educational, and I enjoyed my pre-packed back-home newspapers!
In my real world, in addition to our beloved News-Press and The Perkins Journal, I also subscribe to The Oklahoman. I have subscribed to The Tulsa World, previously, but not currently. Present day newspaper survival was further noticed by me today when I purchased a USA Today weekday paper for the single issue price of $3.
I am certainly wondering about the future of this American institution, print media? As I have said many times before, on this question, my crystal ball is still in the shop!
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