11\u00a0 rises 30.11\u00a0 NW0\u00a0 wchill11\u00a0\u00a0 Winter<\/p>\n
Full Wolf Moon<\/p>\n
My sister wrote to say that Dad was 82 when he had his stroke.\u00a0 He worked until then as the circulation manager for the Times-Tribune.\u00a0 He loved newspapers and he was a depression era guy, work work work.\u00a0 He took newspapers to the racks in retailers where those who did not have the paper mailed to them could pick it up.<\/p>\n
Therein lies the second phase of this story.<\/p>\n
The great Canadian newspaper shortage, which I imagine none of you remember, drove the cost of newsprint beyond the reach of many small town dailies.\u00a0 It happened to coincide, at least as I recall, with the rise of the offset printing process.\u00a0 Offset printing eliminated the Linotype and the Heidelberg.<\/p>\n
Photosensitive sheets became the print from medium.\u00a0 These could be handled with no lead and the printer’s ink from before came in a less viscous form, less perfume, too.<\/p>\n
Offset printing is the modern method of printing, but its dominance of the printing world spelled the death knell for many small town papers.\u00a0 The capital costs of getting out of the letter press era and into offset was more than most could bear.\u00a0\u00a0 The result?\u00a0 Printing became centralized with many small town newspapers printed in one location.\u00a0 In the case of the Alexandria Times-Tribune this meant the paper came off the press in Elwood, some 8 miles away.<\/p>\n
In most small towns the daily paper’s time had come an end.\u00a0 In the best case the papers became weeklies with a small reporting and advertising staff–often the same people–working out of a storefront office.\u00a0 In the worse case they became shoppers, thin to non-existence news surrounded by page after page of advertising.\u00a0 The shopper made money, but it was not a newspaper.<\/p>\n
The rest of the story will come later.\u00a0 I have to get ready to preach.\u00a0 Bye for now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
11\u00a0 rises 30.11\u00a0 NW0\u00a0 wchill11\u00a0\u00a0 Winter Full Wolf Moon My sister wrote to say that Dad was 82 when he had his stroke.\u00a0 He worked until then as the circulation manager for the Times-Tribune.\u00a0 He loved newspapers and he was a depression era guy, work work work.\u00a0 He took newspapers to the racks in retailers … Continue reading Fading Into History? Pt. II<\/span>