Couch Potato Blog

One of my favorite news shows for its positive, slice-of-life features, “CBS Sunday Morning” depressed me this week with its reporting on the demise of the newspaper. Of course, they’ve got a guy on there who owns an Internet company talking about how newspapers are dead and it’s all about the Web now.
Okay, there is some truth there but what do you expect to hear from a guy who owns an Internet company?
The majority of younger people aren’t reading newspapers anymore, they tell us, but I know lots who do. The biggest loss with the looming death of newspapers is the high quality of news the print product offers. You know those Web sites that grab news content from all over and aggregate them in one place? Most of it originates in newspaper newsrooms; the newspaper is the standard, the leader in investigative pieces, the beginning of the free media in America as we know it. So while today it’s all about electronic news offered in quick and easily digested capsules, there may come a time when this country once again wants the deeper stuff and is even willing to invest in it. There may come a time when the inner webs implode and we need ink, paper and a press agaion. Charging to read news stories on the computer is stupid. I hate reading news on the Internet. I’ll take ink on my fingers anyday. There is power in the printing press and I’m not ready to give up on it yet.
Take Michael (Steve Carrell) from “The Office,“ for example. He’s not giving up on paper. But, attention everyone, Michael has left the office. That’s right, everyone’s favorite boss did not survive a change in management and has quit. He gave his two weeks’ notice on last week’s show though and acts, as usual, very inappropriately in his final days (drinking brandy, eating old food of the fridge, crawling around on his hands and knees). It’s hilarious. Michael plans to launch his own international paper company and wants everyone from The Office to join him even though everyone keeps telling him the paper industry is in decline. That again.
Pam (Jenna Fischer) the receptionist is the only one (a dreamer) who agrees to leave with Michael because she’s tired of being a receptionist. She wants to be a saleswoman. Pam standing up like that made me so proud, even though the show is a comedy. Pam wants more. She’s figured it out. And she’s not giving up on paper. It’s something worth holding onto.