Kansas City Faith Scribe Mourns Impending Death Of Newspaper

UPDATE . . . 

SPECIAL THANKS TO BLOGGER BILL FOR GIVING OUR TKC BLOG COMMUNITY A LOCAL SHOUT OUT IN HIS OBIT FOR PRINT!!!

Now . . .

Forgive our sacrilege . . . 

However, it turns out that the public would rather use their phones to spy on frenemies, gaze at hottie curves or listen to partisan screeds preaching to the choir rather than consider old-school viewpoints of hacks and the ensuing chatter that's pushed by political consultants. The world isn't really that much worse or better because of this fact of life. Neither media bias nor human nature is the culprit of newspaper downfall, tech merely facilitates feeding the worst urges of that have always been inherent in human nature.

Nevertheless . . .

It's kind of INTERESTING that this faith scribe remains atop the traditional news totem pole even in the digital world even if the conversation has moved elsewhere and the mainstream has given way to tiny pockets of mostly insignificant political chatter with little impact over policy i.e. your grandpa and his Facebook political group of 500 other adorable, grumpy locals.

And still . . . 

We take a moment to consider the traditional lament of old newspaper scribes and this bit of cowtown dead-tree print media . . . 

"I now live in an apartment complex containing about 170 units. My wife and I are the only Star print subscribers in our building. And my guess is that the newspaper’s print edition will disappear in a year or two.

"This experience of shrinking (or dying) newspapers is not unique to Kansas City. What may be a bit unusual here, however, is that while we still have an active (through shrunken), award-winning daily newspaper, we also have a series of other journalistic enterprises to fill in where The Star no longer provides much coverage.

"The result of this decentralization of journalistic output here has something important to do with truth and the public’s understanding of that concept. And journalism has a commitment to truth in common with religion, the field I’ve written the most about for the last several decades.

"Every world religion, after all, has core teachings about truth — what it is, why it matters."

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . .

Truth, Religion and the Demise of Local Newspapers

Flatland Columnist Bill Tammeus argues that hollowed-out newspapers diminish the mission they share with religion to make sense of the world.