I have spent my entire career weathering the vicissitudes of the media game—from classified ad-eating Craigslist in the early internet to paywall snafus (“information wants to be free—oops”) to the algorithmic siphonings of social media, Big Tech’s annexation of advertising and the ever-receding mirage of the creator economy.
Some will argue the future has never looked bleaker for the rag-and-bone shop of journalism. I’m not so sure.
One of the peculiar quirks of the alternative newsweekly trade is that our print day—Wednesday—arrives fashionably late to the party. By the time ink hits paper, the news cycle has already burned through several outrages, issued corrections or excoriations, and moved on to the next big thing.
Between this writing and your reading, something ridiculous and existentially irresponsible will have emanated from Washington. Ditto an apocalyptic innovation courtesy of Silicon Valley, whilst Hollywood laments and lauds its demise and rebirth in a single breath, and Wall Street makes fortunes for the few and mincemeat of the many. If it bled, it led, but come Wednesday, ’tis but a scab.
That said, freed from the tyranny of immediacy, we’re left to cover what endures a little longer: the band playing a bar down the street, the original play opening this weekend, the artist, the idea, the fleeting but tangible culture of a place that still stubbornly happens here in real time, all the time. It’s not the breaking story, but it’s ours.
I’ve accepted that I’m never going to shout, “Stop the presses” unless my tie gets caught or something. But that’s not why any of us get into this racket—I started as a paper carrier. That I grew up to be a newsperson delivering these stories to you, dear reader, points to either consistency of character or Newton’s first law of motion, the one about inertia. Either way, I’m still in the news delivery business—only now the news arrives a little late and, ideally, right on time.
Send press releases to dh*****@*****ys.com.
Daedalus Howell is editor of this paper, the writer-director of the feature film ‘Werewolf Serenade,’ author of the novel ‘Quantum Deadline’ and host of ‘The Drive’ on 95.5 FM.
