Wednesday, September 26, 2007

A sign of our Times

Met an old reporter for the New York Times today at an intermittently fascinating conference on Securities Lending. Grey, paunchy and somewhat curmudgeonly, studiously underdressed, he was in all rather Lou Grantish.

But mostly the guy was an object lesson in the trajectory of the papers of record, and especially this institution that is delivered to our doorstep each day, which continually morphs and shrinks, as does its cousin the Journal, which in its most recent pre-Murdoch state was consciously inching away from news towards being an opinion broker. Will the Times and the Journal eventually be wires plus magazines? Who knows. But I think my recycling container is going to get lighter and lighter and time goes on.

And what if the New Yorker too succumbs to its senescent demographic (which would include us)? Then what will become of my household?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

If the newspapers deteriorate further you can spend less time reading and more time applying your enhancement cream.

Anonymous said...

"o cruel shrinkage, rage against the shrinking, beslather thine own lest ye also wither"