Out Of Ink?
Has a 30-plus-year career in print media come to an end? I hope not.
While the novel coronavirus might have been the final nail in the coffin, the past tense hammered in all the other ones.
“I loved The Sporting News,” I would be told when someone learned where I worked.
“Oh my goodness, I used to buy the Street & Smith’s yearbooks all the time,” others would remark, all the while smiling and not fully comprehending what their comment meant to me.
“Loved” and “used to.” Past tense.
********
The call came on a Tuesday in August. It should not have caught me by surprise but it did.
It was my publisher and, given that we were a week and a half from sending the 2020-21 College Basketball preview to the printer, it didn’t strike me as odd that he was calling. In the days of the ‘rona, this is how work got done. Instead of sticking his head out of his office and calling out my name, he would contact me electronically.
But he wasn’t calling to inquire about whether I’d seen the Top 25 list (I hadn’t) or received all of the mid-major conference previews from the freelancers (I had). He was calling me to tell me that in three weeks, I would be unemployed for the first time since I was 15 years old.
“They’re shutting us down,” he said. “With the uncertainty surrounding sports in particular and the state of print media in general, they don’t see any way to keep us going.”
I do believe only a fool would have thought the ride was going to last forever. But I had allowed myself to become that fool. While the Red Cross might tell you my blood type is A-positive, I know it’s really a heady brew of soybean oil, pigments and wax (printer’s ink).
I was raised in a family in which reading was championed and books were treasured. My paternal grandfather was a 50-year employee of William Collins & Sons, a Scottish publishing house that built its business on the Bible and educational tomes before moving into broader consumer fields. Over the course of his career, my grandfather worked alongside Agatha Christie, Joy Adamson and Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery to ensure everything from the paper stock and ink density to the binding and dust covers of their books were to their individual preferences. I would guess that upsetting Montgomery had greater consequences than disappointing Christie but, given the body count in her novels, I might be mistaken.
Books were treated with reverence. The first time I dog-eared a page in a book was the last time I dog-eared a page in a book, and the only acceptable writing in a non-textbook was either the author’s signature at a book signing or a personal inscription if the book was a gift.
Digital media certainly plays a vital role in modern society, but there’s a permanence to print that digital products cannot ever hope to match. The “lean in” (digital) versus “lean back” (print) experience is a real thing. I’ve spent a lot of time on the web (including reading some truly fantastic longform pieces), but I’ve never gotten “lost in it” the way I have in a good book, magazine or newspaper article. And, yes, even though the quality of my daily paper has diminished substantially over the last 10-15 years, I’m still a subscriber.
I never stopped being thrilled by receiving the first batch of copies via overnight delivery from our printer or going to Barnes & Noble to sit and watch people buy our magazine. That combination of pride and validation never ceased to be incredibly satisfying.
Post-publication interaction with our readers was also a treat I’ll never forget. From multi-page letters of praise to short notes that essentially told me that I was an idiot who could neither write nor design his way out of a paper bag — just knowing that people were invested enough in the magazines to take the time to communicate with us was special. Although maybe not quite as special as the gentleman we could count on to write us every year after the baseball magazine hit the newsstand. He was far less concerned about our content or design than he was our ability to let MLB superstars Carlos Correa and Mike Conforto know he’d love to see them in a tight pair of jeans (as well as various stages of undress). See??? Not all the craziness is confined to online message boards. We always got these handwritten notes of unrequited affection tucked inside a very nice Valentine’s Day card.
I consider myself to be extremely lucky. I’ve lived and worked through some amazing times. I’ve been a part of documenting everything from the emergence of a previously-unknown Michael Jordan and the tragic death of Dale Earnhardt Sr. to the Cubs breaking their World Series goat curse and every stick-and-ball season for the past decade. During a snowstorm that blanketed our city during Daytona 500 deadline weekend, I even shared a beer with Warren “Werewolves of London” Zevon at The Uptown Cabaret, an adult “dance” club which happened to be both directly across the intersection from our offices and the only place open and serving food after midnight (I promise, we did try Papa John’s — they wouldn’t deliver in the snow). For someone who loved sports and for whom deadline pressure was like a drug he couldn’t get enough of, I lived a professional life of no regrets for longer than I ever dreamed I would as a freshly-degreed Journalism school graduate from UNC.
********
The list of publications that has gone out of print over the past decade or so is staggering. Not just in terms of numbers, but more so in terms of their stature in the annals of print media. In addition to The Sporting News (est. 1886) and Street & Smith’s (est. 1855), Life, Gourmet, U.S. News & World Report, Bride and Playboy have all stopped printing. Not to mention the earlier demises of Cracked and National Lampoon! So is the print ride over? As a career, who knows? I certainly hope not but like most people these days I’m open to whatever pays the bills. I know I’ll never stop buying books, magazines or give up my subscription to the newspaper, and that gives me hope that somewhere out there is a printed staff box that will have my name in it one day soon.
-30-