There is nothing like opening a newspaper. To be able to see multiple stories page after page. To see a large, bold font telling about a major happening. To read random articles you may have overlooked but found as your eyes moved from one page to the next. To see a page full of puzzles, games and comics.
There is nothing quite like reading a newspaper.
I remember kids riding their bikes with a newspaper carrier over their shoulders with newspapers in the front and back on their delivery route. For many kids, the paper route was their first job and responsibility. I remember some of them would have to collect payment from the subscribers. They would get phone calls if the newspaper was late or missing. It would be interesting to see a study about kids from the 1970s and 1980s who had paper routes and how they turned out as employees in a working world compared to those who didn’t.
Growing up, I was interested in the news and I would cut out certain kinds of articles from the newspaper and save them. This continued through college. I have a binder full of newspaper articles that I found interesting at different points of my life growing up.
One of my favorite things in college was to walk to the Roto dining hall with my newspaper. I got my meal and then sat in the far corner where it was quieter. I took up several spots to eat and lay out my newspaper. This was back when newspapers were wider than they are today. I would go page by page looking for stories that caught my interest.
Before I had my column, I would write letters to the editor. Over the years, I have written and been published in local newspapers and national news. It was always fun to open the paper and see my words of wisdom and logic fill the page for the other readers to read. The Daily News started its Town Crier series back in the early 2000s and I was accepted as a columnist for the Town Crier III series. That volunteer role led to my position as a bi-weekly columnist.
Nearly 15 years ago — in July of 2009 — I received a call from the Daily News editor Steve McClure. He offered me a role as a bi-weekly columnist. The idea was every other weekend the Daily News would have a left-winger write a column and they provided balance by having me — a highly logical, reasonable and rational person write a column on the opposite weekend.
The imbalance in my favor became obvious and over the next decade, they added several more columnists on the weekend. I think it was to make it a fair fight against my column. It started with me versus one leftist and it ended with a total of four regular weekend columnists. It can be spun in different ways but we know the truth. They kept adding columnists on the weekends to give the leftists a chance.
Fewer people want to open an actual newspaper. This introduced a need for newspapers across the land to make changes in the way they do business. The Daily News will reduce the number of times a physical paper will be printed. The newspaper will continue daily in digital format, but spreading out a paper on the dining room table will only happen twice a week.
Every other weekend for the past 15 years with very, very few exceptions my fans knew they could open the Daily News and learn something new and rad. That, too, appears to have changed. As I write this column, I realize this could be my very last weekend column.
It seems that I will be “published” on Mondays — the day of the week that the Daily News hasn’t been printed for years. Even with adding a bunch of additional voices on the weekend, they were not able to drown out the greatness of the right. The new plan of publishing me on a day when no newspaper is printed is pure evil genius on their part.
In all seriousness, to all my fans and readers: thank you for taking the time to read my column over the past 15 years.
Anderson is a former co-host and producer of a conservative talk radio show. He has a degree in philosophy and enjoys photography, woodworking, and sports. When not computer programming, he volunteers in the community. He welcomes feedback at crier@cityofpullman.com.
