I recently did something ironically rare for me — I subscribed to a print newspaper, like an actual in-print newspaper and one not containing the words “Catholic” or “Herald”.
We’re at a “so much going on in the world” phase, and I thought it would be an interesting change to get the news that way versus scrolling scrolling scrolling.
I paid for it online and waited waited waited.
Day one, no paper. Day two, no paper. Day three, you get the idea.
After dealing with questionable customer service who seemed more prioritized to doing nothing — to be fair, “refunding” the non-delivered issues was easy, but any sort of action that would have led me to actually getting my paper delivered to me was nil — I realized I was not going to get what I paid for.
After nearly a week of getting more refunds than issues, I decided to cancel something that never started. The paper informed me that my paper would stop being delivered in four days. Wouldn’t one have to start before one could stop? (Full disclosure, I did finally get two issues before the “cancel” period started, but by then, the damage was done)
When the online form asked me why I was canceling, along with options about price, not reading it, and so on, not getting papers delivered was one of the options available, like this was something that happens a lot.
Considering what my current employment is, this was yet another sign that newspapers may be slowly fading away.
When a prominent and famous “daily” doesn’t even seem to mind that its print edition isn’t coming to my door, or at least a door in my building, that is a reminder this is 2024. Things are different than before.
Changes are always coming
I’m not naïve enough to think that newspapers are going to last forever (It’s cool, I started in radio and moved onto TV so I never saw myself as a “newspaper guy” anyway), but that doesn’t mean society has to lose the professionalism, informativeness, stability, reliability, or even customer service quality of a newspaper. Those things needn’t go out with the printing press.
I’m sure I’ve said this before, but I’m in my 40s so I’m starting to repeat things more often, but we, as a society, have an incredible knack for getting rid of the things we should hang onto and ridding ourselves of what should have been treasured and maintained.
If a newspaper was the best way to share good reporting and information with the populace, maybe we should be keeping them.
Enough about newspapers though, this applies to a lot of things.
We can learn that technology is always going to evolve.
There is nothing wrong that the horse or some other animal isn’t the fast mode of transport anymore, but are all the crashes and other negatives that come from driving worth it?
When you rode a horse, you still had to take care not to T-bone or hurt anyone. How could we bring back that same courtesy to modern roads?
It’s OK that typewriters and word processors have given way to computers and other more advanced technologies, but what happened to accuracy, grammar, spelling, and so forth?
These things should be so much easier now but we let the machines handle most of the dirty work.
I guess it’s even alright that planes have taken the reins from trains and passenger ships, but we lost craftsmanship, elegance, design, and hospitality. How can we bring those back in a modern setting?
Of course, I know what drove a lot of those decisions. Money money money — the gaining thereof and the less spending thereof.
Please tell me that not everything is decided somehow by money.
The ‘Good New Days’
Recently, Facebook has decided that I need to see numerous posts showing pictures from decades ago, complete with comments on why things were better “then”.
Those who take it a step further can get pretty vicious about how awful things are now and the younger generations responsible for said awful.
#SorryNotSorry
It’s so easy to think we can make things great again by bringing back the superficial or best window-
dressing elements of the past.
Why not focus on the attitudes, motivations, goals, plans, actions, and spirit of times past rather than wishing Kmart would come back and spending one’s words blaming who you think is responsible for the Kmart going away?
Rather than lamenting that things are “bad” today, make them “good” again.
Maybe, just maybe, there are some universal good things that have always been a thing and are still around today. We can embrace them too.
I imagine young people still help others across the street who need help, they just don’t always get on TikTok. You know? How it used to be.
Fifty years from now, someone will look back on 2024 and call this a time they wish they could go back to.
Let’s make them jealous. We get to live in that time now. Let’s either find the good or make the good.
Thank you for reading.
I’m praying for you.