Failure of Newspapers, Reason for

Research and analysis of gross and net revenues of the nation's print newspapers and their suppliers has revealed some interesting information.  Two relationships have been discovered, one direct and one inverse. 

The direct relationship is described by the fall in purchases of printer's ink and newsprint, and the gross revenues generated by newspaper sales.  This relationship has been characterized as one which should be "intuitively obvious to the casual observer."  A not-so-obvious, but just as concrete a direct relationship has been noted between the decrease in newspaper sales and the decrease in the sales of ink-stain removal products.

The inverse relationship, which should be just as obvious is between the decline in print-edition sales and the rise of revenues due to the sales of eReaders (various products), tablet computers (e.g., iPad(r) and iPhone(r)), the Amazon Kindle Fire(r), the Barnes and Noble NOOK(r) and the like.

Our analysis, proprietary and (probably) of non-generalizable nature, is that the general public has become fed up with cleaning printer's ink deposited on fingers, hands and everything those appendages touch (e.g., white toasters and other appliances, white kitchen faucets, counter-tops upon which the papers lie (lay?) while being read, smudges on white shirts and blouses and a myriad of other otherwise sparkling, clean items about the well-kept home). 

While the smudges are some of the most obvious draw-backs to daily newspaper subscriptions, there is the peripheral disadvantage of having finger-prints all over the house.  Even the least adept, CSI trainee is able to lift those prints from glasses, plates, every-day silver and mirrors, to name but a few areas from which an identity can be determined.  Day-to-day readers may not be under suspicion of anything (except participating in the demise of the print media), but in the unique situation where a specific individual is being sought, a random finger print may be critical to closing the case, and therefore, be a reason for even the most ignorant criminal to cancel his (her) daily subscription.

It, therefore, seems obvious that the tidy middle class homemakers have decided that "newspapers must go," that ink-removing tasks (and the costs thereof) are a burden to be dispensed with, and that the neat, clean and continuously-updated digitized information  delivered to us inside our warm, dry, heated and air conditioned homes it the option of choice. 

In addition, having that digital information delivered to us 24/7 on our eReader equipment (various manufacturers) is far preferable to having to brave the wind, rain, snow, sleet, ankle-deep water and other environmental hazards when getting the paper thrown on to the driveway by the brazen little snot, with the entitlement attitude, on his bicycle who will TP our trees at Halloween or misplace our paper completely if he is not given a handsome monetary (cash) reward at Christmas. 

The newspaper as a modern-day utility is going the way of all dinosaurs.  We can only take heart in the fact that those dinosaurs, their bones and altered flesh are now, after eons of metamorphosing into Light Sweet Crude, are lighting the way to our petroleum-fueled future.  The horse-and-buggy days were replaced by internal combustion engines.  The print media is being, understandably, replaced by digital data delivery.  And it has all happened, in the case of newspapers, because of the printer's ink smudges on our new, white, Cuisinart(r) toaster.

Please pass the butter.

"... Can't help thinking about tomorrow ..."

    The Discrimination Engine principle would have those of us in "overload mode" consider the difference between what is labled "urgent" (usually by others, for us) and that which is labled "important" (which we should be able to do for ourselves).   The fact is that it is usually superiors who force us into overload by cramming our days with they designate as "urgent" when, in fact, most of those urgent things characteristically have no significant importance ... they are just things the superior doesn't want to do and can fob off on someone lower.

     If you can keep the list of objectively important things clearly in mind, then you have an option for the Fobber (if you are the Fobbee):  "I would love to do your Fobbogenic Task, but I will have to stop what I am doing for the Big Fobboblastic Boss (to whom you answer) to do what you are asking.  If you think that would be OK, then just let me know and I'll get right on it."  

  (The rest of the unspoken dialogue you should have only with yourself and not the Fobber:  "Otherwise, go pound sand, quit trying to fob this kind of crap off on me, and go do it yourself !!")

Don't want to know the answer? Then don't ask the question

Real Life ... (embellished a little, but not much): Phone call from One Good Old Boy, out of the blue, right in the middle of doing something important he says: "Hi! How ya doin' ?"

Well, here's how I was the day I got that call ... a little snarky:
"What a week!  Anxiety Level (AxL) UP: Had a note from SONY that our BRAVIA could burst into flame, so had a Tech visit us and take the whole flat panel apart, test the innards and tell us ours was not one that would do that ... (AxL) DOWN;

... maket went up  AxL DOWN ... But for how long? AxL UP ... then drove to remote work site for two days of 8 hr-per-day training on a new EHRS (electronic health records system) ... AxL UP;

... market went down ... AxL UP ... then they killed "Al Gathafi,  AxL DOWN, variously rendered as "Al Qaddafi," "Algathafi," and "Al-Gathafi." ("variously rendered" in this case referred to the spelling, not what the rebels did to him). To make it worse there is the ironically-named "Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights." and we wondered more about the spelling;

... then the market went up (sort of) AxL UP ("Will it keep going up, or will it drop?") ... Note: And for the Libyan leader, that's just his surname. Variations on his given name include Muammar, Moammar, Mu'ammar, and Moamar, and many others.  Once you've settled on how to spell his first and last names, you then have to decide whether you want to add the Arabic prefix "al-" before his last name. Which can also be spelled "el-." And then you have o decide whether the prefix should be capitalized

... then the market ... well, you know ... and AxL went UP and DOWN and UP again ...

...This is the point where most media editors would give up on Kud-Off-ie and run a story on Justin Bieber (sp? Beiber, Beeber, Beaber) instead, but this was big enough to get reported with all the name variations, probably just to make sure he was really the properly "named one" who was dispatched ... that dispatchment leading to AxL DOWN;

... then I got home from worksite, which took 4 1/2 hours instead of the usual 2 1/2 (due to work in the Bay Bridge causing one-lane traffic hold-ups) AxL UP;

... got to bed at 11:30 PM, awakened at 1:30 AM when wife got sick (minor illness, but we were both awake), then finally got back to sleep at 5:30 AM or so, awakened at 8:45 AM and called the cardiology office to tell them we were not going to be there in 45 minutes to keep her appointment ... AxL still UP, but dropping as wife's self-limited illness improved ...

... then found out that overall we were up $4,500+ in the market for the week! AxL way DOWN;

So, all-in-all, it was quite a week.  I am going to the wet bar in the kitchen now and believe I will just drink until Sunday night and hope for a better week coming up ... because we KNOW that AxL will have to be UP!  (and then DOWN and then ... well, you get the picture) ... "
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Somewhere during my response to such and innocent question, "How ya doin'?"  some might apologize for calling ... others might express their anger at my going off on them.  To that I say:
"If you don't want to know the answer, don't ask the question."

So, "How ya doin'?"
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PS: The truth: What I really said was ... what we all say:  "Hey! I'm doin' fine!  I'm glad you called." 
The bulk of the above tirade was, of course, purely internal, purely mental, what some refer to as What is Going On Under the Floor.  Think about it the next time you call a friend.  Listen carefully.  Try to feel what might be going on under their floor.