I do not know Wayne PacPhail, but I'd like to have a beer with him one day way up there in Canada to talk about this article he wrote. It's about the days now past when newspapers mattered and still could have made a difference to the community if they embraced the new media technologies. Like Mr. MacPhail, I once worked at a newspaper, too.

This article he's written is in my opinion one of the finest, most insightful, best written, most personal and touching obituaries for print journalism and newspapers I've ever read. I hope you will take a minute to read it, even if you're not particularly interested in newspapers and their fate. Why? Because much of what happened to newspapers was and is still rooted in their attitude toward the Internet and the related new technologies for social media. What happened to newspapers can happen to any industry or institution that pushes back against the new; that forgets what its mission is really all about. Newspapers forgot they were about helping to get stories told… they were about covering newsprint in ink.

You know, you read Mr. MacPhail's article and you feel sorry for the fate of print journalism. But you somehow feel worse for the living, for the friends of print journalism like Mr. MacPhail, who miss the passing of something that meant a great deal to them and yet died needlessly, senselessly and way before its time.

Share This