Well, that settles it. I’ll have to keep blogging.

The apartment bldg. I live in has over 30 apts and, in the morning, I see only one newspaper delivered. Times they are a changing. However, curling up with a computer isn’t the same as curling up with a good book. It is what I use to tire me out for sleep time.

We can talk about it forever, we can long for the days not so long ago when an important portion of our lives each day was to immerse - really immerse ourselves in the newspapers (my favorite the New York Times - sorry, Liz Smith!) and enjoy our favorite publications while sitting sideways on the sofa or, light behind, slouching in our favorite lounge chair. The last year, particularly the last months, have been the death knell for the written word. The copy still out is leaner, and fewer books are published and the bookstores are hurting. I have thought long and hard on how to fight back as I write often and in a number of media — but the writing is - no, “not on the wall” - but on the screen. The Internet has devoured our lives and our former worlds. In the process, our lifestyles have changed and the hours of leisure normallly spent with the written word, are now mostly spent staring at a screen. Protests are useless, as our world is changing, revolving faster than we have ever seen it … and like it or not, ladies, we are moving on with it. As the kids say, “change happens”. We - the “more mature” who knew life back then - feel a sense of sadness for what was. How could we not? But if — as it surely looks - that our reading is going to be done on the screen, then it follows that Pulitzers will be given for best writing, best reporting, the whole works, by online writers. While it is hard for us to imagine that the quality could ever be as great as the best written on paper that was in our hands, let’s hope that the most talented make the transition more pleasant. What do I see as the problems. Let me have a page. But, for now, two come to mind. Frankly, I don’t feel comfortable sitting on a desk chair reading for hours, do you? I feel I am putting permanent wrinkles - God forbid - in my rear end already. I am afraid to look in the mirror (but then I am afraid to look in the mirror anyhow!!) But second, this is a fast moving generation. No one has time to read lengthy novels of real value, or articles that don’t put the highlights of news in capsule form so we can move on to our cell phones, our Wiis, our obligations that demand our time. WHAT???? And they call this - if we take away the recession/depression/ the scandals - the world of the future? Do the electronic world gains even touch the more peaceful, pleasant world where things that were the gigantic pieces of what we - who have been around awhile - called “the quality of life”? I don’t think so. I don’t know about you, but I am going to miss that world that was. More than a little.

The motto of The New York Times is, I believe, “all the news that is fit to print”. Unfortunately, The New York Times is no longer the newspaper it once was. Most newspapers are not. Why? One reason is that by only have morning papers, the news is already old by the time the paper is delivered. Another reason could be that most newspapers have lost their ability to be non-partisan…on the front page. I enjoy reading our little weekly paper that has stories about the community and our city council meetings. It still has a police blotter that is often amusing. A neighbor child’s picture might be found inside about a school project that is being built. The cosmopolitan papers have become dull. The comic sections have been reduced to only the fashionable comic strips and the local news is hard to find. The Pulitzer will continue to be awarded to reporters who write for largest newspapers…..and now to their Internet Sites. It is inevitable but just like the newspapers being published today are not as newsworthy as they once were, I also do not think the Pulitzer is as grand as it used to be either.

It frankly means the end of newspapers and many magazines.

The Pulitzer considering Internet journalism makes perfect sense to me. But I will continue to get the local paper, no matter how thin it gets. It’s hard to enjoy a bowl of cereal in front of the computer! And I look at ads for local retailers; read the police report; read about city council, school board and downtown development activities, etc. Those kinds of stories either aren’t yet on the Internet cites, or they’re too hard to find. I’m basically lazy and like to be spoon fed!