The Mirage

Now you see it, now you don’t.

No doubt anyone who pays even a little attention to these things has come to realize that newspapers are in trouble. Advertising revenue has been taken over by the Web, and people can get whatever news they feel satisfied with through Web sites, that are often only taking it verbatim from the print people. It’s been like handing your opponent your weapon and letting them use it on you.

Feel sorry for the papers? Not really. They don’t really know what to do, even at this point, with the Internet well over 10 years old. Talk about playing Hamlet.

Take the WSJ. Online edition. Print edition. Charge for both. Yet, they still make items available on the Web just by logging in. Okay, teasing can be good. But papers can be annoying with their indecision on who to be.

I like the print editions, with some need to search for items when I leave the paper on the train and suddenly realize I’m still interested in something I saw. I’ve subscribed to the Journal for years. I like the fact that the Journal has made a home for Stephen Miller, the obituary writer from the now defunct Sun.

But maybe they’ve put him under house arrest. His last piece appeared in the paper on September 30, 2009. It was about the Russian woman, Elizaveta Mukassei, who was a spy for Russia for her entire life and who worked at from Hollywood. She was 97, and her husband pre-deceased her, but he was also active in the spy trade. They were a real-life Natasha and Boris.

The next piece appeared online, October 7, 2009, about Craig Johnson, a venture capitalist lawyer. The online version said the piece appeared in the paper on page A16. Checked, but it wasn’t there. I didn’t miss it.

Went back the next day to read it online, but now the online entry is gone. There is a blog reference to the Miller piece, but no Miller piece.

So, besides the annoyance of expecting something to be in print and then only seeing it online, it doesn’t stay online long. There are other Miller pieces online, but not the latest.

Electronic media is the best medium for air brushing the news. Just change it, or make it disappear. It took a while, but some of Orwell’s fears have come to pass.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com/