Newspapers biting the dust....

Today's headlines includes news that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer would be publishing its final issue in the coming days, and its staff of 180 would be reduced to 20 or so. This is the lastest casualty in the newspaper business, which is seeing many of its century-old icons bite the dust. Then again, if you think about it, it really does sorta make sense. I mean, how many people does it take to capture any given image? Or document any given story?

There is too much capacity chasing too few data points. There are so many cameras deployed on cellphones and hanging around people's necks; and there are so many twittering bloggers now - does the "official" media ever get a scoop before it hits the internet anymore?

There is certainly a need for professional news organizations - objectivity, fact checking, the ability to cover a story in its proper context. All of these have merit. But the idea of coverage has to change. It is no longer necessary for dozens of news agencies to have their own unique coverage of major events. That is redundant. Seems to me that has something to do with the problem newspapers are facing. Along with lowered readership (because readers are getting their news off the web).

Another letter to the NYTimes - Jonesers are in charge, damn it!

To the Editor:

How in the world anyone could argue that someone like President Obama, who was seven years old during the Summer of Love, has anything in common generationally with a bunch of grey-haired, tie-dyed, social-security-collecting retirees is beyond me (a 49-year-old). There is a new generation assuming its position of economic and political power. Generation Jones includes anyone born between 1955 and 1965, a generation with more people in it than the Boomers born between 1946 and 1955. We Jonesers danced to disco, knew no "free love", and remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when the space shuttle Challenger exploded (not when JFK was assassinated). The Boomers had their run, and now it's just about over. I wish they would do us all a favor and get over it - and themselves.

- In response to They Warned You About Us, NYTimes Style Section, 1/25/2009

Obama's inauguration speech (fantasy version)

Greetings, fellow Americans! Here we are, the change you said you wanted, the change we all need - is here, and it starts now. For the last six administrations the Boomers or their elders have been in the Whitehouse. While great changes came from these administrations, they also brought with them great excesses. Two years ago the first of the Boomers became eligible to retire, creating a flurry of news and concerns about how our country was going to cover the exodus of wisdom these new retirees created; and more importantly, how our nation was going to pay for social security benefits as the retiring hoards left the workforce and tax rolls, to become a burden on their children and those of us left behind them in the workforce.

Well, it turns out that 60 million boomers did not all retire at once - we knew that would not happen. It turns out that there is actually a larger, silent contingent of us, born between 1955 and 1965, who are not Boomers, who are going to be in the workforce for another 15 or 20 years. We are the Jonesers. We are in charge. And it is we who are going to make things right again in America.