Dec 18th 2008 09:56 am That could take forever!

21 Responses to “That could take forever!”

1. Ruth on 18 Dec 2008 at 10:19 am #

   I guess I’m not surprised about papers curtailing home delivery. We get our local paper delivered every morning but I’m the only one in the family who reads the bulk of it (I skip sports and classifieds). I usually don’t get to read the paper until after I get home from work in the evening so the news in it is almost 18 hours old. My husband only reads the comics section of the paper and gets the news online. He says the on-line news sites are faster and more up-to-date than the paper which is printed once a day. He’s right but I like the sound of the newspaper rustling and crinkling as you turn the pages.

   The college students I teach have gotten their news on line for years. Most marketing is aimed at this demographic (20′) which has historically speaking a larger percentage of disposible income so it’s not surprising that newpapers are losing ad revenues as the marketing firms advertise where the market it: on-line.

2. Greg f'rom Robertsdale on 18 Dec 2008 at 10:34 am #

   Gotta watch those British slangs. They don’t always “translate” well. Bollucks might have been a better choice. Many Americans who wouldn’t think of being….potty mouths, use “bloody” when they want to sound British, but many don’t know that across the pond, it’s on par with our f-bomb. Then again, plumbers have been calling certain valves by racey names for awhile, (first word pet) so who am I to say what’s acceptable. )

3. Joyce from Indy on 18 Dec 2008 at 10:42 am #

   The people I feel bad for are the ones without computers, like my mother. She is a faithful reader of the paper but has no way to read it online and doubt she would if suddenly a computer miraculously appeared at her house. Although it usually only takes me about 20 minutes to read our local newspaper (I get a lot of my news from NPR and it’s old to me by the time it appears in the paper 2 days later), my mother does spend some time over it, flipping first to the obituaries and then to the weather page. I think putting the newspaper on line is really going to cost those papers. It might seem like a good idea but the ones most attuned to online use probably won’t go online to read the newspaper and many of the ones who care about the paper can’t go online. But I understand why and it’s probably a sign of things to come. That doesn’t mean new is improved though.

4. Connie on 18 Dec 2008 at 11:01 am #

   I don’t know Jimmy. Living in Lansing for more than half my long life I’ve gotten to understand just how many jobs are connected to the auto industry. Its not just GM, Ford and Chrysler line workers who will lose jobs, but their suppliers, all those stores in that general area, on down.

   It might not affect the country as a whole, but that many millions of people out of work will have an adverse effect on the economy. If it wasn’t for the laborers, I’d say let them fail. The management definitely deserves to fail, they’ve done a horrible job, but the line workers work hard and long hours. I know many of them.

   After giving over 700 billion dollars to the banks for making bad loans and causing their own demise, I have a hard time with Washington giving the auto industry such a hard time. Especially since I didn’t see any senators asking the bankers how they got to Washington or how much their employees make an hour. Heck, they didn’t even ask how much the CEOs of the auto industry make an hour! Just union workers.

   Sounds a lot like union busting to me.

   I didn’t mean to say Detroit’s distress is isolated, just that it is severe and has been for awhile. Few are prepared to argue with certainty that Michigan isn’t a preview of coming attractions. — JJ

5. jim in va on 18 Dec 2008 at 11:16 am #

   With regards to the “old Janis”, I am much happier that she has “outgrown” the jealous streak. Personality-wise, now, she so closely resembles my wife that it’s eerie.

6. sandcastler on 18 Dec 2008 at 12:05 pm #

   How does one rate boats if the bikinis are inked over? The most important factor in sailing is the bare skin to sail ratio, how could Janis not know this?

7. buzz on 18 Dec 2008 at 1:22 pm #

   I think the odds are good that newspapers that survive will do so by abandoning the daily model and going to a thrice/twice/once a week model instead. There would still be plenty of cartooning/comic strip opportunities, but the format might change from six dailies and a Sunday to something more like one to three Sunday size spreads a week. In terms of total weekly panel count, I don’t think two or three Sunday size strips a week would be that different from six dailies and a Sunday.

   Alternatively, someone could set up a nation-wide series of comic strip inserts (probably in full color sicze economies of scale would work here) that local papers could stick in their editions.

8. Jim in southwest Illannoy on 18 Dec 2008 at 3:01 pm #

   It’s not just Michigan Connie. My folks live in Indiana where a lot of the suppliers are located. The RV industry which makes a large part of the industry in that area is also struggling. Some manufacturers have folded or are preparing to. Others, like Coachman, had diversified so they merely dropped their RV manufacturing for now. No one buys campers when you can barely afford the gas to drive to and from work. States are running out of funds for unemployment. When they do, what happens?

   Back to A&J, I love today’s retro cartoon. It’s a good thing I quit subscribing to motorcycle mags before I met my wife or I’d be going through the same thing.

   Re: today’s cartoon, I’ve noticed a lot of my friends talking about giving donations in people’s names in lieu of buying expensive gifts. A lot of the time we don’t need any more gifts, especially knickknacks and other stuff that clutters a home.

9. Jean from Dahlonega GA aka Trapper Jean on 18 Dec 2008 at 3:16 pm #

   I’m just glad that my husband and I are comfortable enough with each other that I don’t get all wacked out if he looks at the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated. It’s nice that the longer Arlo and Janis are married the surer she is of herself and the more her trust in Arlo grows.

   And speaking of editions, Dahlonega has a weekly paper, the Dahlonega Nugget. The Nugget comes put every Wednesday, and has no national or state news. It covers the county, and even then by the time I get the paper I know what has happened. Still, I look through it and read the op-ed page and letters to the editor. There’s something comforting about reading a paper that reports the local festival on the town Square and the play at the local high school. If I want the bad news I can go to the internet and get it all. Still, being able to do the crossword puzzle and Word Jumble with a pencil on a real newspaper would be nice.

10. Steve from Royal Oak, MI on 18 Dec 2008 at 4:05 pm #

    Jimmy:

    Thank you for addressing the issue of the Detroit papers discontinuing most home delivery. I think just a few years ago, one or both papers might have just folded. Several daily papers in the area, with ad revenues going down and costs going up have tried to raise prices or not print 1,2 or 3 days that they had before.

    I think that the Free Press/News have a unique and imaginative solution. Whether or not it will work or not remains to be seen, but I will bet within a year or two, you may see other newspapers leap into the future world of the Jetsons and try the same thing.

    You can go out and buy the paper at the stand, which I have always done. If you lived out state, you ended up with news that went to bed at 10:00 PM, plus, I like to have my paper with me to read during my lunch hour or just before I go into the office. I often check A&J in the parking lot even though I will often go to the blog within an hour of arriving.

    Joyce from Indy makes a great point about those without computers. Like I said, I often will eat my lunch in the car, listen to the radio and read my paper (NOT while driving!). Since I will probably keep picking up the paper at the stand, I should be able to keep my routine. But truth be told, I rather read something printed on paper.

    To quote our much maligned coach of the Lions, “My shovel is sharp, my pick is sharp and my attitude is outstanding”. In other words, we have to keep pressing on and keep the faith. America and the world will rebound.

11. Mary in Ohio on 18 Dec 2008 at 5:33 pm #

    What flummoxed me was the idea of PRINTING the paper 5 days a week, but only delivering it on 3. How did they decide THAT?

    Speaking of “national” papers – The Grit is now a slick monthly magazine. Say wha?

12. Of Rats and Jen on 18 Dec 2008 at 5:56 pm #

    I’m 48 years old, and always made a point of subscribing to the daily newspaper wherever I’ve lived.

    8 or 9 years ago, I started subscribing to the various online comics sites, because I got tired of how the deadwood papers would suddenly decide to drop one strip and pick up another.

    Just a couple of weeks ago, I had to stop my newspaper subscription altogether. I have asthma that reacts to perfume, and for the first time in my life, the newspaper advertising sections started coming with perfume samples from Macy’s. On the first incident, my Thanksgiving morning began with an asthma attack, then two Sundays later, we had a repeat occurrence, this time with three different samples stuffed into the Macy’s flyer.

    I contacted the newspaper immediately on the first incident, notifying them of the problem and asking for some solution that would let me keep subscribing. By the second incident, I’d heard nothing more, and had to press them for some assurance that perfume samples would stop, or a firm statement that they couldn’t guarantee that.

    In return, I only got a somewhat snarky e-mail from the vice president of operations, telling me what I already knew – that such samples are fairly common today, and that they weren’t going to put any restrictions on them.

    Common in other venues, perhaps – this was the first time I’d ever had them in my local newspaper. 48 years, first time.

    We canceled our home delivery immediately. I now read the newspaper exclusively online. We can even subscribe digitally to the weekly sale flyers for the supermarkets we shop at, so I’m getting all the information I read the paper for.

    What I’ve lost, after 48 years, is the daily ritual of sitting at the breakfast table with the newspaper carefully folded next to my eggs and bacon, easing into my day. I had to stop, though – the newspaper had allowed itself to become a health risk, and I couldn’t permit that in my house any longer.

    Bitter? Yeah. But what else was I going to do?

    If newspapers want to survive in print form, they have to be sure they are welcome in their customer’s homes. They can’t capriciously decide to start allowing potential health risks to go into those homes uninvited. They did it to me, and I had to banish them from my house.

    Sorry for the rant, but I’ve had little satisfaction trying to get anything done to notify people of this risk here in New Hampshire. I even contacted the local chapter of the American Lung Association, and haven’t heard back.

    I appreciate being allowed to vent here. Thanks for your blog, I’ve been enjoying your past strips and insights here for several months.

13. Mary in Ohio on 18 Dec 2008 at 6:50 pm #

    “Rats and Jen” – Back when I had credit cards, the perfume samples came in the bills. I don’t have asthma, but the strength of the samples was headache inducing. Occasionally the samples in magazines are bad too. When it is life-threatening, you’re darn tootin you should have the right to complain!

    Puzzles are available on-line, but you can’t take your time over coffee. Books are still being printed, despite all the available stuff online, on Kindle readers, etc. , so things may still shake out for the continued existence of PAPERS in the long run. But the upheaval in the economy is effecting is all, no question about it.

14. DouginOK on 18 Dec 2008 at 9:40 pm #

    Like many have mentioned, it’s the routine of reading, the physicality (hmm, according to the on-line dictionary, that word doesn’t mean what I want it to–they should change the definition…) of it. Nothing beats holding the paper in your hands, folding, flicking it so the corner stays upright so you can read it, etc. Maybe it’s an addiction? I know that even on vacation, I’ve got to pick up a newspaper at least every couple of days.

    Stuff I read on the screen just doesn’t stay with me. On-line classes have been a real learning curve for me. I can remember it if I read it on paper, but I tend to gloss over what I see on screen. Too many years of having the boob-tube on in the background, maybe?

    I can’t imagine NOT having a paper to read. It’s just part of my day.

15. Ken in Okemos, MI on 18 Dec 2008 at 11:41 pm #

    As Steve from Royal Oak sorta noted, the situation with the Detroit papers is not all that surprising, except that neither of them folded completely. The two papers are already jointly operated for the Sunday editions and that only happened because of issues with the regulators not allowing one National Parent Company to buy out the paper of the other National Parent Company. I don’t remember off-hand which paper was owned by which company at the time, but since the joint operations started the two seem to have become more and more alike than they were 30 – 40 years ago when they were at their peaks.

    Back in the ’70′s when I was stationed near Detroit I used to buy both papers just to get their different takes on the issues, both local and national – that and laugh and shake my head at the poor copy editing of the Free Press. But now when I buy both papers during the week, I almost have to check the top of the page, to see which one I’m actually reading, to tell them apart. If I am reading opinion columns or the sports where they have separate writers then it is not so difficult.

    I would not be surprised if within 10 years if either or both papers were pretty much gone, or perhaps put out papers on alternating days as a means of keeping “Daily” newspaper coverage for the Detroit area.

    As for the Lansing paper, in my view it has declined significantly as well. And it just jacked the daily rate from 50 to 75 cents which makes it almost not worth buying on a regular basis. But then perhaps it’s sour grapes from an ex-carrier who has seen all the “useless adults” get a significant per paper increase when they took over delivery, because they wouldn’t work for 2.5 cents per delivered copy that we used to get.

    Ken

16. catshoes on 18 Dec 2008 at 11:58 pm #

    About today’s A&J: see http://www.redefinechristmas.org. You don’t have to use their site to participate in this good idea.

17. debbie on 19 Dec 2008 at 12:53 am #

    thanks Mary, for mentioning GRIT…I have not seen (or even thought) of it in years…I used to love it…and yeh, Steve, keep the faith…we are opening a new business and my primary job is putting the pressure on me to sign ‘no conflict’, snort, in their dreams…

18. George in Seattle on 19 Dec 2008 at 1:54 am #

    The Christian Science Monitor will be missed; but in the national newspaper niche, do not forget the Wall Street Journal. Both CSM and WSJ (even though each has a bit of an agenda) are/were true journalistic daily papers…a distinction I do not consider USA Today to ever achieved.

    Of course, none of these carry A&J…so I guess they are not really newspapers after all…

19. Steve from Royal Oak, MI on 19 Dec 2008 at 8:56 am #

    Hey Folks I know that the auto bailout is not too popular with some of you, but ya think you could spare some change for a snow shovel or two? We are getting an inch to two inches an hour with a total of maybe 10-12. Today I am working from home.

    On second thought everyone with half a brain in Michigan owns a snow shovel, because, well it snows in Michigan! Cancel my request. Anybody want a buy a snowman? You would have to be responsible for pickup and delivery though.

    Since I do not have to drive to work, I feel like a kid today SNOW DAY!….and less than a week to Christmas.

20. Joyce from Indy on 19 Dec 2008 at 12:05 pm #

    Of Rats and Jen: My aunt is allergic to the ink (or at least the fumes that come off of the ink) used in newspapers. She used to spread the paper out in the garage for a day before she read it. She said it had an advantage in that she knew the earth hadn’t ended the day before, as was so often predicted. She lived in a small town and I’m not sure how often she got the paper, it might have even come in the mail. I don’t remember the last time I received a perfume sample in a magazine that wasn’t wrapped in plastic to contain the fumes since so many people complained and said it set of allergies. The newspaper (or Macy’s) should do the same if they want people to continue subscribing to the paper.
    Does anyone besides me wonder why so many people have so many more allergies than we used to? I think it’s because we are so clean and hygenic. Of course, now more and more people are allergic to the cleaning materials. There was a study recently of a small sample of children (and yes, all the experts even those conducting the study said it was too small to make definitive conclusions). They gave children in Israel small amounts of peanuts and children in Britain weren’t given peanuts at all. It turns out the children in Britain developed more allergies than the children who were given small amounts of peanuts. So now they think that possibly there is something in peanuts that counteract the allergens. More study needed.

21. Mary in Ohio on 19 Dec 2008 at 6:41 pm #

    Joyce – I often wonder if the number of peanut allergies in kids today is triggered by the fact that WE, their ancestors, all ate so MUCH peanut butter as kids. Even my Mom talked of MAKING peanut butter because it was cheap in the Depression, when the family was living in Tennessee. There were only 77 in my graduating class, but if there had been peanut allergies there would have been less than 50. (In fact I think I will go have a PB&J and a glass of milk when I finish this!)

    Oh, Steve, while many of us are furious at the CEOs being pensioned off, we are only too aware of the REAL people who are suffering! Don’t think we in Ohio are not feeling the pain of you people in Michigan, because lots of folks here are in a bind too. The 700 billion should go to the people being foreclosed on or laid off.

    And speaking of CHristmas, can anyone link us up to “St.Nick of Time”?