Life, love, lust and lunacies from the Sage of Topanga

It is a day of unrelenting light in Southern California, a moment in the burgeoning spring that forces the sun into every crevice of one’s life, whether he wants it or not. I am writing in our gazebo where diagonals of light trace criss-cross patterns on the tiled floor, and the warmth on my back offers relief from autumn’s chill.

Given all of that, it is not a happy time for me. I am saying goodbye to the Seattle Post Intelligencer, the Rocky Mountain News, the Tucson Citizen and, perhaps, to all of print journalism. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye and goodbye. Newspapers that I have never read or don’t know about, strangled into silence by the foundering economy, have shut down and others, like the San Francisco Chronicle, may soon turn off the lights in their news rooms.

Some have fled into digital journalism, struggling to survive in an arena that requires a new way of thinking, blasting news, as it were, into cyberspace and hoping that the next generation of readers will be willing to abandon coffee and the morning paper for flashes of information on a computer screen.

I hope nothing but the best for those who rush into the new era, including the newspaper I recently left, the venerable Los Angeles Times, but Like many older readers, if the day ever comes when daily newspapers no longer fill the street corner racks or thump on my doorstep in the morning, I will be even more disconnected from this world than I already am.

I fell in love with newspapering in high school, and when I was hired by the 30,000-circulation Richmond Independent in 1952 I felt that my life had begun. They were the glory days. Newspapers were the primary source of information, straddling an era characterized by plays like “The Front Page,” with its lunatic take on the boozy, low-paying kind of journalism that existed in the ‘30s, and “Foreign Correspondent,” idealizing the dedicated war correspondent who would risk his life to bring us the news during World War II. We were a combination of Ernie Pyle and a Broadway drunk.

Reminiscing, I can still hear the clickety-clacking of linotype machines, the endless chatter of wire service equipment, the drone of police radio monitors that no one listened to but everyone heard, shouts of “copy boy!” and telephones that never stopped ringing. We used our typewriters like weapons, slamming the carriage to reload the sentences, charging past deadlines with breathless dedication, feeling very much like the world was waiting for what we were writing, and maybe it was.

Eras end, sometimes too quietly to be noticed. The economics of journalism were altering the landscape. As the cost of newsprint rose and unions demanded better wages, Hearst’s Oakland Post Enquirer folded, and across the bay the News followed soon thereafter; then the Call and the Bulletin merged, and died. Only the Chronicle and the Examiner survived, at war with each other, and very shortly thereafter the Examiner went down.

Television news began assuming greater importance as the 1960s exploded into riots and mass protests, bringing instantaneous images to the screen that categorized a culture in transition. We saw satellites circling the Earth, mushroom clouds rising against dark horizons of the Cold War and a fury on the streets unlike any we had ever seen, demanding a new day for the people’s republic of Amerika.

In so many ways it was the beginning of the end for print journalism and for the joyous clash of professionalism and party time. The Knowland-owned Oakland Tribune, an afternoon daily, was trimming its staff, cutting expenses and dropping suburban sections. The warm embrace of the family daily had turned suddenly icy.

The L.A. Times I joined in 1972 maintained a little of the rollicking flavor of old newspapering, but eventually rose to a new standard of professionalism under Otis Chandler. Drunks weren’t tolerated anymore, smoking wasn’t allowed in the building and the approach to news gathering and reporting was less haphazard. But it was still the same game in so many ways, the deadlines, the breaking news, the front page felonies, the governmental debacles, the liars, the crooks, the bylines and the banner headlines.

Now a new age of Americans is turning away from us to begin receiving in online snippets the only news it cares about. So here we are, saying goodbye to all those print journals and preparing to say goodbye to others. A company that specializes in distressed products just bought the San Diego Union-Tribune and it wouldn’t surprise me to see its name on the masthead— The San Diego Platinum Equity Union-Tribune—the way ballparks bear the names of the companies that own them. Is that how print journalism will end up, pimping for dollars?

I lived through newspapering’s best era, when we were a band of brothers in a job that was both demanding and fulfilling, respected and condemned, and always vital to the free flow of information. But things change. Continents move, oceans dry up and mountains erode. What newspapering will become will be determined by the shifting notions of a new culture. But the way we were was special. We were the sons and daughters of a trade that flashed and burned brightly for two centuries, and we never forgot our responsibilities.

Remember us when you’re sipping coffee at a laptop and wondering what in the hell you’re going to wrap fish in now.

I can’t read this without tears stinging my eyes, Al. A big part of me has died.

Jean T.

I am a new reader of your articles, and feel your pain at the end of newspapers. I don’t get it, really. Bookstores can’t stock books and slick covered magazines fast enough, filled with “specialized information” on a million different topics, factual and fantasy, but the ethical gathering of the pertinent news of the day no longer fulfills curious minds, apparantly. The only comfort one like you who put his heart and soul into reporting can take is in the saving of trees that would otherwise be felled for newsprint. The way we were was special, but the way we can be can also be special, with the knowledgeable guidance of those, such as yourself, who know what elements should be included in the new medium to fill the void, and maintain integrity. After all, I’m reading this article from my computer, right?(They stopped wrapping fish in newspaper, too, according to The Today Show’s crew who recently visited a fish and chips place in Ireland.) …..sorry.

The next generation will be less informed by news reported with standards; more will come from ill-informed bloggers and talking heads. Finding truth and accuracy will be harder. I will miss reading the small stories, the human interest events found in print news if all I have is digital news. There is a plus to news online, TV, and radio—it’s instantaneous flashes of happenings. But to understand the complexity of a situation, time to read in-depth is required. I don’t see the “computer generation” showing that patience, resoluteness to this responsibility.

Al,

I empathize with you. There is something about the glory days of any profession that cannot truly be explained or understood except by and to someone who has lived through the experience. The people who make up that era are different from ordinary folk, that’s why they are attracted to the peculiar randomness and individuality that is “The Glory Days.” These people are true individuals.

I joined the American space program in 1961 when there was 1 Russian satellite and 1 US satellite in space. I started by working on the second US spacecraft. By the time I retired, we had little rovers running around Mars and unmanned spacecraft had visited just about every planet.

When I started, engineers were a pretty independent bunch of individualists doing things that had never been done before. Thorny technical problems were often solved over a beer in a local bar on Friday night and implemented on Monday morning. By the time I retired, in 1995, the individuality was pretty much gone, the molasses of bureaucracy was firmly slowing progress to a crawl, and every thorny technical problem was reviewed a dozen times by various committees before finally being declared “solved.” The fun was gone, which is why I retired.

There is always hope. The Rutan’s and their ilk are carrying forward this fun world of the dedicated individualist and there are several private firms in the space business with more to come. They appear to be run much like the early days of the space exploration business and there is still a place for the dedicated individualist. Not for me. Technology has passed me by and age has slowed me down but I can still appreciate the opportunities that are there for those who are willing to stand alone in an era of conformity.

The reason why I say that there is always hope is not just for the space program. You asked, “What newspapering will become….” as a question and yet we are seeing the beginnings of the new era already — the Blogs. I don’t know what the Blogs will evolve into, but they are as free-wheeling and individual as newspapers were in their early glory days. Print newspapers will die but reporting and editorializing will not. And the new era will probably have much of the same flavor as the early days of print journalism.

You and I are not saddened because of the end of journalism or the space program because they will not end. We are saddened by the end of our place in them. The early days of the space program had much the same atmosphere as the early days of print journalism. The individual was admired for what they could accomplish in that free-wheeling environment. And the individualist loved that free-wheeling environment.

Yes, I mourn the past. But, I admire the future. There will always be a place for people like you and me. And there will always be people like you and me. So, I raise my glass to us. And to what was.

And to what will be!

Another eloquent essay! I can feel your loss as you see an important part of culture slipping away. These little essay have a world of experience wrapped up neatly. You provide history, personal experience and the necessary humorous twist in the last line. Al Martinez, I like your style!!

I’ve written you before, Al, to let off my own brand of steam about the demise of print journalism.

I told you about learning to read while sitting in my father’s lap as he read the daily paper.

That was a true lovefest, him for me, me for him, both of us for giant sheets that told us things we needed to know in order to be good citizens in a democratic republic.

What is it, I wonder, about just the simple act of picking up a newspaper, taking it by both its sides, fold down the center, and snapping it open? How can that be such a pleasurable thing to do? It makes no real sense; but sitting here now before the glowing screen, it still gives me a chill that I get, in the same form, nowhere else.

There were other things from my childhood, smells from the kitchen, my sisters’ voices at play from another room.

I remember them; but they are only memories.

Today, this very morning, I partook of the comfort of an easy chair near a large window, a cup of strong, black coffee, and the newspaper.

Now that is supreme, if only temporary satisfaction.

Might you share with us your thoughts on the idea afloat that would make of print news a non-profit industry?

The idea would, of course, eliminate campaign endorsements.

Would it, also, do you think, do away with editorials and opinions?

I guess that even though I cling to the hope that something will yet salvage the very center of my morning’s routine, I may yet be grasping at wilted straws.

Ultimately, the newspaper was just made for people like me.

If I spill a little coffee on it, it just becomes all the more mine.

Try that with a computer keyboard.

And by the way, thanks for the photo of Mrs. Martinez, the lovely Cinelli.

She looks to be at least an equal match for you, Al.

Watch your step, man.

John Dorr
Pasadena

Michele comments that more news will come from ill-informed bloggers and talking heads. She apparently believes that the sources of news will not have the standards of accuracy or the depth of reporting displayed by the newspapers of today.

But, consider the newspapers of yesteryear. Not yesterday, but yesteryear. Consider the beginnings of print journalism. There are those who believe that Hearst deliberately started the Spanish-American War. Early newspapers in general, displayed all the standards of accuracy and decorum of the National Enquirer. But they evolved into the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and the Prescott Daily Courier.

Blogs are already going the same way. There are blogs that are the equivalent of the National Enquirer, blogs to whom facts are secondary to listeners and that favor sensationalism (most of them, I think). But there are also blogs who fact check as stringently and report with the same depth as the Los Angeles Times. The problem is, there are so many blogs, and they are so readily available, it is difficult to find the good ones. But they are out there and when you find them, you can subscribe. I think it is called an RSS feed, but I could be wrong.

No, Sam, you’re quite right. And yes, there are a half-handful of blogs that know a fact from an opinion, and can tell spin from substance. But this is a reader beware universe now.

People being what they are, they will look, not for objective news, but news or opinion that reinforces their own not-so-unique point of view. It goes without standing that blogs encourage cults of personality. And that is not necessarily a bad thing. We come to Al’s blog here because we appreciate the insight, the wisdom and the very comfortable way he expresses his insights to us. But not everyone has the integrity or the strength to do the job right. Too many bloggers will confuse news and opinion, or color the facts with their own points of view. They will not write to inform or enlighten, but just to entertain. That’s OK, but it is not enough. The merger of news and opinion–to the point that they are indistinguishable–will be the lasting legacy of those business people to whom news is just another product, like aspirin or laxative.

Yo Al M.,
Change that coffee to a martini and you have a terrific closing line!

One thing about the internet - you write something, toss it out there, let it fly, and it ricochets off the back side of computer screens for months and perhaps years. This article may have been posted way back in March, but it is brand new to me.

Yeah, I turned away from the printed news a couple of years ago because my husband and I couldn’t actually throw away important bits of information and ideas - such as those in your column - and our house was full of “ideas”. Our archeological filing system quit working when we got into our 60’s. The only way I can find anything now is if it is on the TOP of a pile. Or via google or yahoo or another search engine.

I am ever so thrilled to see you here on the web and still sharing your insights. Thank you for your many years of getting my brain in gear in the morning.

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The Way We Were

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