Newspapers: The Media Dinosaur

My daughter's favorite DVD is Larry-Boy & the Bad Apple. As the Bad Apple plots to take over the city, she plans to take the town's TV reporter, Petunia, off the air.

"Without her," the Bad Apple's henchman says, "people might as well read the newspaper!"

"Yeah, right," the Bad Apple replies with a sneer.

I laugh every time I hear that line. Fifteen years ago, I graduated from one of the country's top journalism schools. I planned to become a successful sportswriter, possibly in my own hometown.

That dream came true ... in a way. I'm writing sports for a weekly paper on the west side of town. I would love to make it into the daily paper, but I'm not disgruntled with the gig I have now - even though it only pays a few of the bills.

As a matter of fact, I feel fortunate to have any kind of newspaper job - since the newspaper business has as bright a future as the typewriter business.

I know a lot of us still like newspapers. They are portable, and you don't need to be tied to a computer to enjoy them. I especially love to read the baseball box scores in the paper - I have been enjoying them since I was 4 years old.

But as much as I love newspapers, I am growing accustomed to living without them. We get the paper on the weekends, but I get by pretty well on the other five days.

Between the Internet and television, I can find out all the news I need in about 20 minutes. The newspaper simply can't provide that kind of immediacy.

The only way the paper would be able to gain an advantage would be to have expert writers who could provide analysis of the previous day's events. These days, the experts sound off on television and write in their blogs within hours of major events.

So the key to success in journalism these days is to be flexible. When I went to school, I thought I was really being clever by going into both print and broadcast journalism.

Today, I would be a fool to concentrate solely on writing for the newspaper. The big newspapers in Akron and Cleveland have both cut jobs in recent years, and they are struggling to make their websites more appealing.

So now I'm writing for the AC (is everyone calling it 'the AC,' like 'The O.C.,' or it is just me?) and I'm looking for other websites to write for as well. I wouldn't be surprised if I wrote more online than in print very soon.

Things could be worse, though - I could have studied to be a typewriter repairman.