In his syndicated column, Garrison Keillor
recently offered instructions for how to read a newspaper in public: "You open it with a flourish and a ripple of newsprint, your buoyant self-confidence evident in the way you turn the pages with a snap of the wrist, taking in the gray matter swiftly, your eyes dancing over the world’s sorrows and moving on, crinkling the page, snapping it, rolling it, folding the paper in halves and quarters, tucking it under the arm and tapping it against the palm. Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Stewart, all the greats, used the newspaper to demonstrate cool.”
Is there an epidemic of wistfulness about newspapers
? I'm certainly guilty of being overly sentimental about all things paper. And with the death of the newspaper seeming like a forgone, tragic conclusion, I'm certainly liable to break out a hankie and lament its demise. But maybe there's still hope. Some, like National Journal Media Critic, William Powers, are making the case for the permanence of paper, most especially newspaper. In a 2006 whitepaper, Hamlet's Blackberry, Why Paper is Eternal, Powers drew this conclusion:
Paper is all around us, quietly doing the same work it’s been doing for centuries. Indeed, what’s most remarkable about the quest for e-paper is the standard by which we measure its progress. Paper itself is the inescapable metaphor, the paradigm, the tantalizing goal. The new medium will be deemed a success if and when it is no longer just an imitation of paper, but the real thing – when it becomes paper. It’s not as easy as it looks.
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