There is only one conversation in journalism right now. It took place a million times over the holiday season, and it was not a balanced conversation. 3 or 4 people stood around a grinning twerp and badgered him, Why don't you mourn the newspaper!? Think of the amazing coverage the Times provides me, with my cup of coffee, every morning! Something great is being lost, something great! People don't read from screens, they don't have any attention spans! I can't read more than 30 seconds at a time, my eyeballs– The depth–the depth–you have to agree with this– is being destroyed! There is something about holding a piece of…
We can get to all these questions some other time. For now I just want to register one thought. A few years ago it was these same 3 or 4 smart people who used to stand around and pull their chins and say, Literacy is over! People don't know how to write any more. The epistolary art is gone–they don't write letters. They are on the telephone all the time, they are playing video games…
Well they got their wish. The fulfillment was beginning even as they complained on that occasion. People began writing more than they ever have before, everywhere. They wrote more letters than anyone has ever written. Because of the new machines of course, an industrial revolution was taking place, and now a guild is being destroyed. And kids today are so ardent about writing I understand that you can be having a conversation with them, say about the death of the newspaper, and they will be texting blindly in their pocket. And of course a great number of these new writers are daring to say something intelligent to others about the world before them, without demanding professional status or the largesse of caged advertisers, and we are all better for it. (Though yes, me and my friends are in income tailspin).
