Done with Dead Trees: Goodbye, @knoxnews
So, my fiancé has, for a little while, had a subscription to the local newspaper. I've thought it a bit quaint but understandable- there's just something about the feel of newsprint and the way you interact with a newspaper that just isn't replicated by anything electronic. I scoffed, of course, because the newspapers are a dying industry. They aren't adapting quickly enough to the way the world is moving, and it's hard to judge them for that. It's hard to figure out what to do. How to make money.
But this morning removed any sympathy I had for them. I've attached an image to this post-by-email, and I have no idea where it'll show up in the post body, but it'll be there. It's the front page today. Two things happened yesterday- a tiny, impoverished nation was struck by a massive earthquake and a local college football coach quit his job. It's obvious which should have the larger headline, right? The one about the death and the need for aid in Haiti, right? Nope. The largest headline I can recall seeing in pulp in recent years is about the college coach quitting. Awesome. Well, so they didn't make it the largest headline, but it's in there right? Somewhere? Nope. Not on page 1. Not anywhere we could find. Searching http://www.knoxnews.com this morning at 0800 yielded nothing. Not a damn thing about an international disaster because the local rag was caught up in a small-time circle jerk about college football. I'm not upset that the Haiti story wasn't the largest headline on the front page. I'm upset that it wasn't covered at all. And I'm upset that, at least around here, the Kiffin story would have trumped anything else that happened in the world, anyway. It's a startling reminder that our culture has lost all sense of perspective, and it bothers me. It bothers me because I'm guilty of the same and I react the way that people do when confronted with their own demons- I rage! We're probably going to cancel our pulp subscription and donate the price to Haiti relief, one way or another.The argument has been put to me that the local paper is, in fact, the local paper. Their site doesn't really seem to cover non-local news and so I shouldn't be surprised something like this is omitted from the paper. That's partly true, that's the reason I'm not upset it's not the top headline. But it still should have been in there. If they're going to run random international AP pieces as filler when there aren't enough gas station robberies to fill an edition, they could have worked this in. A paper is a paper and it's either a source of news, or it's a local gossip rag. What use do we have for the latter? In any event, go give some money to the Red Cross and, if you're the praying sort, send some of those good vibes their way. Haiti wasn't a pleasant place to live even before the largest earthquake in 200 years.UPDATE - I should point out that I do have friends that work at KNS. They aren't stupid people, or jerks, and I don't mean to imply that anyone working there is anything other than a stellar human being. The real issues here, of cultural and global perspective, aren't the fault of KNS. Quite the reverse, of course- their behavior is just symptomatic of these issues. The culture of East Tennessee will place any major news about the Volunteers above anything else that's happening on this planet, and the KNS is in the position of marketing and selling to this area. Whether I want to participate or not, whether their business model works for me or not.
UPDATE 2 - An editer over at KNS posted on one of their blogs about the Kiffin/Haiti issue, so I figured I'd update with a link. Apparently my Fiancé and I missed the Haiti story somewhere inside the A section this morning when we were looking. He also makes cogent points about the role of local newspapers, which I feel like I need to respond to at some later point when I can sit down and type it out.
