It always saddens me when a newspaper is forced to fold. A source of information is gone, a voice of a community is silenced, editorial views are lost. And jobs are lost too, no small matter in an economic climate that is hastening newspapers’ demise.
The Rocky Mountain News printed its first edition 150 years ago and published its final edition on Friday. Ed Stein was the paper’s terrific and award-winning cartoonist since 1978. I last featured his work in November, after Sarah Palin’s rambling, discombobulated exchange with Wolf Blitzer that would be hilarious if not for her aspirations to higher office and the willingness of some extremists to take her seriously. Stein saw it just the way I did, which doesn’t mean it was the right way but did reassure me that I’m not alone.
Several cartoonists paid tribute to the Rocky Mountain News this week, but with 2009 shaping up to be a dire year for print journalism — the Seattle Post-Intelligencer could be the next to fold — I chose instead a simple ‘toon that could be called How to Tell If Your Paper is Next. How ironic the artist is a freelancer now, after stints at several influential West Coast papers, including the Post-Intelligencer.
|
Steve Greenberg
Freelance, Los Angeles Feb 26, 2009 |
