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A daily serving of your world
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By BOB HENDRICKSON
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I'm probably not the best person to write a column on the 40th anniversary of the combined newspaper known as The Ledger Independent.
On the one hand, I was pretty much oblivious to my hometown newspapers prior to 1968. Born in 1953, I was only 15 years old when the newspapers merged. In 1978, I came to work for Laurnie Caproni and Gary Quinn at the newspaper, and for the last 30 years, I have been a reporter, ad salesman, editor and publisher. I'm probably too involved and have too much of my life invested in this place to give you any real perspective.
I know how hard the people in this building work. I know how little some of them are paid, and I know how much all of them care.
But anniversaries are a time for reflection, and I'll reflect a little. I'll do it for old times' sake, and because I owe it to the people who work here now and those who have passed through the doors over the years.
"I remember when Maysville had two newspapers."
I hear it all the time -- although the ranks of those of us who remember The Daily Independent and The Public Ledger are growing smaller each year.
For those of you who don't remember, The Daily Independent was a morning newspaper run by the Purdon family. Martha Comer was the editor and the paper's political positions were strictly Democrat.
The Public Ledger was delivered in the afternoon. Mary Matthews held court in the editor's office, and the paper supported the Republican Party and all things GOP.
Neither newspaper published editions of more than six or eight pages, and much of the content involved "social news." But the two editors were fierce competitors and there's no doubt their competition fueled a constant battle to get the news first and best.
Paperboys, usually on bicycles, delivered the papers, and -- like most families on East Second Street -- we took both. I remember the paperboys coming to the house to collect money for the subscriptions, and I remember the arrival of The Public Ledger in late afternoon as a sign that the day was quickly winding down.
I remember the sound of the paper hitting the porch, and my dad grumbling at some editorial Martha Comer had written.
My mom even sent me the newspaper when I was away at school. I didn't read it thoroughly, but I wonder if that connection to my hometown may have been the real reason I was attracted to the paper after college. I did read Ann Landers religiously, and I developed a lifelong addiction to the comic pages.
Young people don't read newspapers as much today -- they're too busy text messaging or checking sports scores on their I-phones. They depend on lots of sources for their news -- websites like MSNBC and CNN, search engines like Yahoo! and Google, TV shows like The Daily Show and Bill Maher.
This generation seems to have lost the need to feel newsprint in their hands or to smell the ink and know the satisfaction of reading a thoughtful, well-crafted column on the opinion page.
In response, newspapers will need to re-connect with this audience if we are to survive. And that connection will mean new forms of delivery and new ways of doing the things we have done for almost half a century.
In the meantime, we'll do our best to sort through a day's worth of local, state, national and international news to bring our readers a slice of the world they live in.
Abandoning the political loyalties of The Public Ledger and The Daily Independent, this newspaper has adopted an editorial position that is -- at least in theory -- independent. We have riled both Democrats and Republicans with endorsements and positions that at times must seem schizophrenic. But our goal is always to consider the candidate, not the party and to put the interests of our city, our state and our nation above all else.
We've traded typewriters, linotypes and green eyeshades for computers, video cameras and Web sites. Forty years from now, the folks who come after us will celebrate another milestone.
We hope they look back with pride on those of us who toiled and struggled to keep the tradition alive and to create a 21st Century newspaper. |
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