Yesterday’s News Tomorrow?

From Ron Karle, 68, freelance writer and former editor, East Lansing, Mi.:
     I enjoyed your column on 11/23 in the Detroit Free Press, which is my old paper, too. (I worked there in the late Fifties/early Sixties as an apprentice printer and later as a journeyman before earning a journalism degree from Michigan State in 1966.)
     You ask, “What would it take to win over friends and family who don’t read the paper now?”
     Well, for one thing, quit running notices in the paper such as: “Last night’s (political, business, sporting event, etc.) did not end in time for this edition. Complete coverage is available on our website.”
      No wonder fewer and fewer people–especially younger readers–bother to pick up a newspaper most days.
      In the “old days” the story may have been written on a typewriter and set in type on a Linotype machine, but somehow it made the morning paper.
     Despite all of today’s advanced technology, the motto should be: “Yesterday’s News Tomorrow!”
Sent 12/1/2005.