3 December 2023
I received a comment from Jim about the number of newspapers I read. It started with my Dad lying with me on the living room floor reading the comics section together. I’ve been addicted ever since. Growing up in Morton, Mississippi, we had the local Progress Herald. I used to write the Boy Scout column for that paper. Then there was the Scott County Times published in the neighboring town of Forest. There were two Jackson newspapers: The Clarion Ledger, a morning paper and the State Times, an afternoon paper. My family seemed to always have a subscription to all four or we somehow got our hands on them.
When Dad was moved to the Delta for his highway department job, the preferred paper was The Commercial Appeal. Dad always said you could set your watch by the paper carrier. The Commercial Appeal was a far superior newspaper to the two Jackson papers as far as I was concerned. It was significantly different politically than the Jackson newspapers. North Mississippi seemed to me to be more liberal than the central part of the state. Perhaps part of the reason was the Tennessee Valley Authority and their hydroelectric system which kept electricity costs down in that area of the state. People would get outraged when southern legislators tried to get rid of the TVA.
While working the periodicals desk at Ole Miss, I got exposed to more than the newspapers of my childhood. I think the University subscribed to a couple of hundred newspapers from all around the world and we put out about forty of those for display and reading. It was often my job to put the newest edition on paper sticks. You had to find the center page of sections and slip those sections of sticks down the length of the center page.
Often there was one loose sheet of paper and that had to be stapled onto the rest of the paper. You then filed the old paper in the stacks and at the end of the year, a year’s worth of a title was send to the bindery to be bound and shelved.
I would regularly put out Le Figaro (France), Le Monde (France), Corrier della Sera (Italy), El Correo (Spain), and from England, The London Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and the London Financial Times.
As far as U.S. papers, I would put out The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angles Times, Chicago Tribune, St. Louis Post Dispatch, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Atlanta Constitution (now The Atlanta-Journal Constitution), and The Times-Picayune, among others.
Of course, when putting them out, I couldn’t help but read a few. I was taking French at Ole Miss so I often read Le Monde. Later, after graduation and several moves here and there across the country, I got exposed to more and more. I still love reading an actual paper but when I moved to Florida, the delivery system was hit or miss. That’s when I finally caved and went online with my reading.
Sadly, a lot of these papers are no longer. The Times-Picayune recently went online and ceased the print edition. I understand The Washington Post is in financial trouble.
My biggest gripe with newspapers these days is editors not catching mistakes. Not only are there grammatical errors but sometimes an article just ends in mid sentence. Apparently, they ran out of space. My biggest peeve is a scientific one in they often screw up the genus and species in the articles by either not italicizing the genus and species or using it incorrectly.
One favorite part of reading the papers was “Letters to the Editor.” Three good friends, Jim, Maureen, and Chris are good at sending in letters to the Miami Herald and the Sun-Sentinel. I don’t read that section any more because a lot of it is tripe but Jim, Maureen and Chris often copy me with their letters and their articles are always well written, well reasoned and, I’m sure, raise a few hackles by pointing out the flaws in other peoples reasoning.
There is a lot of variation as to the time span for the golden age of newspapers but my lifespan certainly includes a major portion of whichever variation you choose. Newspapers, probably more than books, shaped my views of the world, kept me current on local, state, national and world events. When I was teaching, I was always taken aback by the lack of knowledge of current events of students (other than pop culture).
Hopefully, good journalism will survive. I have great hopes. For example, I still read the Clarion Ledger (Jackson, MS) online and it’s good for local coverage and some state coverage. Even better, there is an alternative news source available online called Mississippi Today. It’s kind of the anti-establishment news of the state. It holds elected officials’ feet to the fire and has exposed malfesance and corruption. As long as there is some publication willing to publish the truth and counter arguments, we’ll probably be OK. To quote The Washington Post, “Democracy dies in darkness.”
Stay tuned!