Trash Day and Newspapers

It will be clean out time at the office today. Campaign offices are really like Newspaper and TV News Rooms. Scattered and messy, but the nice thing is that most everything except the financial records can go into a trashcan. We don't really have much to do except bring home those records and a computer. We ran out of signs, literature, stationary, stickers and everything thing else that campaigns use as cannon fodder. Of course, we ran out of money before all of that. I still feel good that we didn't take oil money.

Speaking of newsrooms above there is interesting news in the Washington Post this morning about more Editors at major daily newspapers quitting their jobs rather than firing journalists to increase the bottom line for their mostly ultra conservative owners. Those editors are making last stands in the demise of the newspaper as the dominant information disseminator. I think I know why this is happening and I can describe how it works in our house.

I get up every morning and on the way to the kitchen to turn on the espresso machine I turn on the computer. I go out to pick up Jerry the Cat, the Albuquerque Journal and New York Times from the driveway. I come back in and make the lattes for Bobbi and me. I sit down for five minutes to scan the Journal's front and state pages. I then spend 40 minutes checking out my favorite Internet news sources and blogs. I get to the Times in the evenings. Think about that formula. I am spending a lot more time on the Internet than the newsprint. I think a lot of people are doing that.

I still love to read the newspaper and always will, but I can get away from the Journal's never changing presentation and Editorial stands by surfing the net for variety. The Times is a pleasure to read because of its writing. Suggestion to the Journal....Allow comments on your stories on the Internet and you will up your readership. Here is an interesting report on the Journal's newsroom makeup and other demographics.