EKA —- hi, As you know, I am heavy into writing . . . so heavy that I usually am able to see the slightest slips in my normal newspapers and magazines — and at times, when the layout — for as well as good writing, the layout is singularly important - is turning bad, I actually write. My biggest coup I believe: The Chicago Tribune ALWAYS had a tabloid size Book Section - my favorite, of course - but it must have been cheaper to have the pages the same size… and so this really killed people. We felt it should read like a book, easy to hold, whatever. Then after mistake after mistake, it became the tabloid after some years. The first morning, I wrote the editor of it - who sort of knew me - and told her that this was her chance to make this the first section people turned to. I had nerve, but knew what I was talking about, telling her what could be done by Week 2 to make it smashing. She wrote back in an hour and again later - but I watched and waited. Sure enough Week Two of the former size had the appealing cover page, and some - some of my suggestions were taken. It was never good enough. I told the editor that people no longer seem to have time for full page reviews that end up being negative - what is THAT about - and that more books reviewed in shorter form would suit more of us. Voila - a few more changes made — but I could have gone down there and laid the darn thing out in a day with the rationale and it would have been tops. I have been around long enough to know. Enough about that - as with Zell, immediately my hands were covered with newsprint and the Tribune was — more than a disgrace. Everyone cancelled it - after 40 or more years of subscribing. Fortunately, I splurge on NYTimes. EKA, this is how I rationalize the expense. If I see articles that either my friends or I will not just find interesting but will lead us to other sources we did not know about, I rip them out. With all its sections - and the variety - I am finding things constantly. . even the very very quirky major article on the newly married couple each week who are so ill-suited but somehow managed to get together with the strangest scenarios. It is fodder for conversation at times. BUT I have followed up on Health and Science - and I actually think several articles saved friends’ lives - and I am not kidding. And so the money spent I find worth the enjoyment of very very good writing that I find nowhere else. Sometimes, they print me as the Tribune did. In the better days of Chicago Trib, they all knew me and liked me and gave me wonderful exposure occasionally. I didn’t write unless I was pretty sure to be printed. . and sometimes used a pen name so that I could write more regularly with no question. Yes, I think of everything. I did the same with New York mag when I wrote a lot in the 1970s there — it became a game and so I would play it. I still get New York, New Yorker, but long for the days of the former editors. I even time how long it takes me to read each - casually - and that let’s me know if this issue is very so-so which both can be — or at least some part has caught my interest. Now you have my secrets. And yes, the written word on paper is on a fast downhill slide - and the economy will hasten its demise. I don’t like to read those online. Just as with books, I like to settle in, and there is something about turning the page, the feel of the paper, that “settles me in”. Interesting: the libraries find that their circulation is going way up. But figured in are the DVDs which is about 40% of the total and rising. But we figure if a patron takes a book out with that DVD, the can get caught into reading. People don’t realize but going to a library for about anything - newspapers, magazines, and so much more - is like getting a gift. NO charge and as I am a far-out travel essay nut, they have to get my books from all over the country for me - and they come in fast, and come in free. I haunt the place!!! I don’t know the answers to your questions — but I fear that “the new world” with all its gimmicks is already letting us know that the quality that we insisted on and got is probably not going to be there. I am usually pro-active, but in this case it seems pre-ordained. The young people have no idea what quality in the world past even meant so accept whatever at face value. It is saddening to forsee the future …