The demise of great institutions often come in degrees, a gradual decline akin to each evening’s setting sun. And nowhere is this more the case than the newspaper industry, a once venerable behemoth arm of the Fourth Estate.
A few years ago, I was sitting in the publisher’s office of a highly respected mid-sized city daily newspaper. We were discussing the industry’s precipitous slide in circulation. Across the United States, weekday copies of printed papers have dropped from a high of 60 million in 1994 to 35 million for combined print and digital subscribers today.
“Imagine there was a big block of ice in the middle of this table,” the publisher said. “That’s the printed newspaper. It’s still there – but it’s melting – and only the largest chunks of ice are going to last – and maybe only for so long.”
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As a person who loves everything about the printed newspaper, from perusing it over breakfast to the sound of its crinkling paper and the smell of its ink, his comments saddened but didn’t surprise me. I still subscribe to several papers, but often read in them stories I already read online the day before.
It wasn’t always like that, of course. The sound of the paper slamming onto the stoop was often met with anticipation and excitement – the day’s first glance at the news, scores or the thoughts of a favorite columnist.
My parents fed my news interests at an early age. Arriving off the train each evening, my dad often handed me his copy of the Wall Street Journal. On a good day, he’d have picked up other discarded tabloids that commuters left behind. My favorite was the New York Post, an afternoon paper known for its wildly clever, if not always tasteful, headlines.
Our hometown paper was Newsday, a tabloid that emerged from the explosion and expansion of post-World War II suburbia. All of my four older siblings delivered it, and when my turn came in the 7th grade, I was ecstatic at the prospect of having my own route.
At the time, your own paper route was many things – a rite of passage, a way to earn money and, in retrospect, the source of many wonderful and practical lessons for life. Here are just a few of the enduring nuggets of wisdom I learned while delivering the newspaper.
Don’t take yourself too seriously – but treat your job like it’s important, because it is. I remember feeling a heavy sense of obligation when that bundle of 50 - plus papers landed with a thump on our walkway each afternoon. Surely my customers looked forward to the paper as much as I did, so any fun afterschool activity had to wait until my deliveries were complete.
Listen more than you talk and show interest in other people. It was intimidating to knock on doors and try and sell subscriptions. But my parents reminded me that salespeople have solutions to people’s problems. “Ask them what they like or what their biggest challenge is,” my mom said, “and then remind them it’s probably covered somewhere in the paper.”
When tough times come, keep moving through the adversity. Adopting the postal carrier creed, the paper had to be delivered in all kinds of weather. When it snowed, I often had to leave my bicycle in the garage and instead stack the papers in a milk crate that I bungee-corded onto a Flexible Flyer sled. My first route began a half mile from the house, so it was a long and cold slog to even start – but it had to be done.
Don’t stress about money – but hold some in reserve for an emergency. Carriers were responsible for paying their bill on Saturday morning, so collection often began Friday night. If a customer was away or out of cash, you were out of luck. The bill had to be paid. The discipline forced me to keep some savings available just in case my collection came up short that week.
An apology should always follow a mistake. When my bicycle slipped off the curb one windy November Sunday morning, my papers blew away in every direction. I retrieved what I could and reassembled them as best as I was able, but inevitably missed components along the way. Within a few hours, my customers were calling me, and wondering what happened to their television guide or Parade magazine. I had to explain the accident, offer a refund and apologize profusely. In the end, nobody demanded their money back.
Behind every number on a house is a name and a world of many challenges well beyond our comprehension. Regular interactions with my customers reminded me of life outside our family’s four walls. Death, sickness, financial setback, military deployment, estrangement and the normal vicissitudes of everyday living were on full display. That early education reminds me of the oft-quoted observation, “Be kind. For everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.”
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The adolescent paper carrier is a vestige of a bygone era now as struggling print publications rely on adults with cars to deliver in the predawn dark. I sometimes think of my old customers, many of whom are no longer living. Which brings to mind the last lesson I learned while riding my oversized brown Schwinn with a big wire basket full of papers along the tree-lined streets of Baldwin on Long Island.
As fate would have it, my first and last customers were the town’s two funeral homes – Weigand Brothers and Fullerton’s. My daily visit was a regular reminder that however long and difficult one’s journey might be, the apostle James was right when he said life is short – “a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” But the best news of all, be it in a print or digital format, is that while life is brief and fragile, I have the hope of an eternity that is long and everlasting.