End of an Era

I began reading newspapers when I was four years old. At first, my parents and grandparents thought it was cute, that I was copying them reading the paper with their coffee.

At some point, they realized that by then I could read some things, and I was actually reading headlines and pieces of articles. I may not have understood it, but I was reading it. Understanding dawned the more I read.

My parents always subscribed to The Roanoke Times & World News, and I loved to read the paper after I came home from school. (Well, after I'd watched Dark Shadows first. Or Batman. Whichever was on.) On Sundays, I would try to get the paper before my father so I could read it fresh. I loved the look and feel of an untouched paper. No wrinkles, no crumbs from anybody else. He would fuss at me for messing up his paper - he liked them untouched, too. It was sort of a game and I relished disobeying (yes, I was a hellion, I don't deny it.).

When my husband and I married the first thing we did was subscribe to the evening edition of the paper. We each read it over dinner after work.

Then the paper changed its name to The Roanoke Times and started only coming out once a day, in the mornings. We still read the paper at dinner, only the news was a day older. Still, there were the comics, and more in depth writing on stories that interested me.

In the 1990s, the paper began changing. At some point, online became a thing. I was a bit late to the online thing, living in a rural area as I did. The only way I could actually get online was through America Online (AOL). My local phone company didn't have a way to reach the internet until the late 1990s.

The newspapers, meanwhile, put information for free online. I don't know what genius thought this was a great idea. At any rate, news was suddenly free, and the downhill tumble began.

Today, the daily paper is a shadow of its former self. A Sunday paper now looks like what the daily paper used to look like almost every day. Advertisements are nearly non-existent, and as the revenue goes, so goes the paper, I guess.

It was with great sadness that I cancelled our print edition subscription and kept a digital one, so I could read the paper online. No more newspaper in the box. No more print edition to pile up in the recycling. No more newspaper to use to fill up space in Christmas packages.

Sunday was the last day of our print edition. So yesterday, there it was, an empty paper box. I read the e-edition online.

It's not the same. I don't think my husband is going to adapt to this well. He's trying to use a tablet to read, and with his big fingers he is having trouble manipulating it. I've suggested that tonight he try it on his computer screen. I find that easier than the iPad, too.

As a former news reporter, this hurt. It broke my heart to not renew the subscription, but they were asking so much for so little return I couldn't justify it anymore. A recent certificate of ownership in the paper said the subscriptions were down to about 20,000. At one time, that was how many people were reading the little ol' weekly I wrote for. And the over 100,000 people read the daily.

This explains a great deal about the country. If people are not reading the news, then stupid rules. 

Who knows, maybe in six months, we'll pick the print edition back up as new subscribers, if it's still available. I have my doubts the daily paper is going to survive.

It was hard to let that 40-year-old subscription go, but I guess I'm moving on into the new age with the digital edition.