Image by noebse
Image: A news vending machine
Image: A news vending machine
It’s a slow death
As of many others
It has always been there
Keeping one company
An early morning ritual
But its days are numbered
As a portly gentleman
Slowly anorexia nervosa afflicted
Thinning and wasting away
A predicament no less
No more throws-in over
the gates nor news-vendors
nor news vending machines
A paper-less society making
An invisible presence
A pity for the ‘papers magnate
That controlled the print media
Their empire crumbled
Whittled down drastically
They have lost their influence
Or is it? No it is not!
A resilient lot with the old adage
‘You can’t fight them you join them’
So they too are in cyberspace
Currently extending free offerings
Perhaps devising a foolproof system
To get at that odd few cents
of our newspaper
money
they used to receive before
In time we’ll be made to pay
For the news we crave everyday!
Written for Brian's hosting at d'Verse Poetics: Reaching the Masses and Poets United's Poetry Pantry #134
Written for Brian's hosting at d'Verse Poetics: Reaching the Masses and Poets United's Poetry Pantry #134
..going are the days of rattling paper over coffee...great write on this perspective, Hank. I just can't get as comfortable in a chair with my laptop as I once could with a paper ;)
ReplyDeleteYes, Kathy, that's progress I would say! We yearn for the 'good things and comfort' that we were used before!
DeleteHank
I admit it...I read all my news on some sort of electronic device...one day kids will be asking what a newspaper is...
ReplyDeleteNicely done Hank :-)
Ahhhhh yes..... this line especially captures the slow death "As a portly gentleman
ReplyDeleteSlowly anexoria afflicted" .... Wonderful ! and of course a genuine peek into an all too soon future to come ...
A nightmare world. Great words.
ReplyDeleteYeah ... sad but true !!! electronics will gradually take over !!!
ReplyDelete...how sad Hank...look what we've done...we create & create & create for the ignorance of future generations... sooner or later newspapers/tabloids are no longer in demand... sigh...
ReplyDeletesmiles...
Yeah, but it doesn't deliver to the door, does it? Still a way to go, then. Cool post Hank. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThere will come a time when there will be newspapers, it will all be electronic and in a way, we are saving the trees and environment. Though its sad to see this portly gentleman go, it might be for the best ~
ReplyDeleteYes, good for the 'green revolution' which is already faced with lots of challenges. We do miss the good times. Thanks Grace!
DeleteHank
Your writing reminded me of a section in by G.K. Chesterton. Let me share it with you:
ReplyDelete"But they had forgotten something; they had forgotten journalism. They had forgotten that there exists in the modern world, perhaps for the first time in history, a class of people whose interest is not that things should happen well or happen badly, should happen successfully or happen unsuccessfully, should happen to the advantage of this party or the advantage of that part, but whose interest simply is that things should happen.
It is the one great weakness of journalism as a picture of our modern existence, that it must be a picture made up entirely of exceptions. We announce on flaring posters that a man has fallen off a scaffolding. We do not announce on flaring posters that a man has not fallen off a scaffolding. Yet this latter fact is fundamentally more exciting, as indicating that that moving tower of terror and mystery, a man, is still abroad upon the earth. That the man has not fallen off a scaffolding is really more sensational; and it is also some thousand times more common. But journalism cannot reasonably be expected thus to insist upon the permanent miracles. Busy editors cannot be expected to put on their posters, "Mr. Wilkinson Still Safe," or "Mr. Jones, of Worthing, Not Dead Yet." They cannot announce the happiness of mankind at all. They cannot describe all the forks that are not stolen, or all the marriages that are not judiciously dissolved. Hence the complete picture they give of life is of necessity fallacious; they can only represent what is unusual. However democratic they may be, they are only concerned with the minority."
This is a very interesting twist Charleen! GK obviously is invoking an 'awareness' that line of journalism preceding a happening. It will necessarily provoke a lot of diverging opinions, revelations or even anger at what 'might happen' or 'what if it had happened'. My contention is that it can well satisfy an inclination of a social scientist who is bent on a crusade to right a 'perceived wrong'. It's an act of preempting a likely disaster which hopefully the powers that be can take preventive action. Alternatively it can well be a desire to cause a debate, of inciting the mind to be thinking on a wider scale of a provocation or perhaps a condemnation in a good way. Thanks for sharing, Ma'am! Appreciate it!
DeleteHank
Hank, so true! Newspapers are on their way out. I seldom see news boxes any more; and I myself have stopped subscribing to a daily newspaper as I can read what I want on their edition online. I remember the days of sitting with coffee and a newspaper. Now I sit with coffee and computer! Definitely a different world as our grandchildren grow up, isn't it, Hank?
ReplyDeleteI do the same too, Mary! I still subscribe to one which others in the household had wanted. But I'm somehow not inclined to read like before. I just skim the headlines and view the pics. For one thing the news are already stale as I would have read about it on-line the night before on real time! One can have access to the same item from different sources which makes it all encompassing and all the more interesting. But I still miss the mornings of 'reading over coffee' and going through 'page by page' and of getting the 'news first thing in the morning' sort of situation. It's a small price to pay though as I get that feeling of being better informed of situations with an early start. Thanks for sharing Ma'am!
DeleteHank
Yeah the change has sure taken flight, as one day they won`t be paper any longer. But a charge will come due in some way I`m sure.
ReplyDeleteI hope newspapers never run out. They make brilliant mulch for gardens and enrich the soil with big fat juicy worms.
ReplyDeleteWhat a timely and well worded piece. I do wonder about the news and so many other printed material and what the future holds.
ReplyDeleteSad but true...I still love to read magazines on paper and not on a device. i love the feel of the pages....
ReplyDeleteit is interesting how our means of news has changed...and many of the actually papers have dwindled away to nothing...a few pages except on sundays....you do have to change though with the ages or be left behind....nice capture of that hank...
ReplyDeleteThe signs of times,I suppose! Thanks Brian! I feel it has a lot to do with supply and demand. The print media people must have realized their sales dropped drastically in recent times. We on the one hand have less time 'to laze around over coffee like before'
DeleteHank
Ah very well written.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was young, I worked in an old fashioned newspaper office. Where we sat out front typing on old Underwood typewriters, and men laid words - with upside down letters - in trays to run off on the huge rolls of paper...........the editor would sometimes yell STOP THE PRESSES, just like in movies. Once I got a scoop (I was fourteen) and he yelled that for MY story. Way cool. You took me back, Hank, to simpler times. Looking at a screen doesnt do it for me the way an actual newspaper does.
ReplyDeleteThat's wonderful Sherry! You are more informed on ways of the newspapers of old. It must have been interesting to be on the toes with all the news of the day 'lying all around' Your getting the best end of the scoop must have been a real thrill (what more for a young lass ever so eager!) Thanks for sharing Ma'am!
DeleteHank
So true Hank. Death lurks in the paper's ink. Kind of sad.
ReplyDeleteYou tell the tale of newspaper's decline in the advent of new media. Some parts of this evolutionary process sadden, but it is generally very exciting.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.kimnelsonwrites.com/2013/01/16/wonder/
The newspapers may be in decline, but their owners have indeed simply moved on. I tend to get my news on the radio because they report the things there are no pictures of so the coverage is wider.
ReplyDeleteHank,
ReplyDeleteA great review, of what we may have already lost...Online world is wonderful; but there are those times, when one wants to smell, feel and hold the paper item.It connects us with memories, yet the cloud and cloudless ways, are taking over:)
Best Wishes,
Eileen
I don't miss newsprint blackened fingers and the recycle bin packed full, but there's suddenly a slice of life missing, even when you can read the paper online. Good write.
ReplyDeleteThis is clever and so well done! I agree they will find a way~
ReplyDeleteI love both ways, but there is something magic about paper n' ink, to me :D
Hank, on days off, Lex and I go to a local coffee shop and read the paper. I cannot stand Newsweek's tactic of going online exclusively. Someday I'll be in the doctor's office and there will be IPads, tethered by wires, for patients to scan!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great take on the prompt, man. Loved it. Amy
http://sharplittlepencil.com/2013/01/27/extra-extra-editorial-comment-by-moi/