No comment.

My old newspaper, site of 20 years of professional memories, has been sold.

To the publisher of Grit.

Posted at 4:54 pm in Media |
 

18 responses to “No comment.”

  1. mary said on June 7, 2006 at 6:21 pm

    Ooooh. Grit. Two things I think of when I hear of that publication. One is the ads that used to be in the back of comic books for jobs selling Grit, the other memory is of reading Grit for a living. Actually, I was reading all the newspapers from the Rocky Mountain west and assorted other publications that appealed to that part of the country. My job was to read all these papers and clip things that either pertained to stories my boss was already assigned to write about or that could become either larger stories or that were cute or curious or something. Four years I spent on that when I was in college. It was a great job. Not once did I ever clip anything from Grit. We dropped that subscription.

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  2. nancy said on June 7, 2006 at 6:25 pm

    I think you have to be over a certain age to remember Grit’s ads in comic books. Couldn’t you win a bicycle if you sold enough subscriptions? (That was Alan’s remark: “Everyone will get a bicycle with their severance package.” With a big reflector!)

    And yet, it lives still.

    Paying 15 cents a word.

    I’m beginning to think only management will get a bicycle.

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  3. mary said on June 7, 2006 at 7:40 pm

    I don’t deny being really old. Disneyland is younger than I. I remember the ads in comic books for kids to sell seeds too. A friend in art school had blown up the photo of strange looking child from those ads, and had that face in many of his art works. I believe his name was Richard LoPresti. The kid, that is, not my artist friend. He was Paul Shmulowitz.
    Phew, I’m writing like I really tired, which I am. It’s hard work finding nurses.

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  4. mary said on June 7, 2006 at 7:51 pm

    I read the list of what Grit pays for, and I’m torn between submitting some poetry or sending in some heartwarming “Little Friends” stories. Imagine the submissions they get for those two categories.

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  5. Jay Small said on June 7, 2006 at 7:53 pm

    Sad. I remember some of the best journalists and just all-around newspaper people seemed to convene on The News-Sentinel, especially in the years right after the Pulitzer.

    Many of those people are still good friends of mine, though we’ve all moved all over the map. Others, including you, I had lost touch with but spotted again thanks to this whole Internet thing (I still say it’s just wrong … the CB Radio of the oughts :-).

    Best to you and Alan! Tip one for The News-Sentinel of old!

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  6. John said on June 7, 2006 at 8:07 pm

    How did I somehow miss the News-Sentinel March???

    I’m working on lyrics but I’m having trouble rhyming “we don’t have pearls before swine” with “our managing editor is a megalomaniac”

    Or “we fired mike dooley and sheena dooley quit”

    “no Nancy Nall and we’ll be done by next fall”

    Wait, those parts kind of rhyme

    Where can I download the news-sentinel march MP3 file??

    File me under amused

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  7. brian stouder said on June 7, 2006 at 8:44 pm

    That march IS pretty cool!

    I think for your lyric, you have to work in some imagery – something to do with ‘the setting sun on evening newspapers’ – and something maudlin like ‘the sad spectacle of a loyal Sentinal slowly sinking, sinking out of sight’ etc etc…plus an entertaining blast or two at uninspired successors (or pretenders) to the great Foellinger legacy.

    ‘Course, then you have to do the Ken Burns trick of slowing down the March, so that it becomes elegiac….

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  8. alex said on June 7, 2006 at 10:48 pm

    I’m old enough to remember Grit. In particular, a grade school classmate who was peddling subscriptions. Before he even launched into his schpiel my mother walked in and said NO.

    She did indulge us in squandering our allowances on Sea Monkeys and Ant Farms, though.

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  9. MichaelG said on June 8, 2006 at 9:19 am

    I’m half like Mary. I remember the comic book ads for selling Grit, but I never actually saw a copy of Grit. Still haven’t. It was like the ads for King Midgets (a sort of little car that coexisted with Grit in the back pages of magazines and comics). I always thought that both were mythical. Never realized that either really existed until I saw a King Midget advertised on ebay and now this about Grit.

    I sold 13 subscriptions to the Chicago Tribune and earned myself a bike. My dad was the happiest person around not having to buy me one.

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  10. joodyb said on June 8, 2006 at 10:25 am

    The Browning kids sold Grit in Leesville, OH. Or maybe it was the Knights. Anyway, once a week a truck would whiz by the corner in front of our babysitter’s house and toss out a bundle of them. They were fascinating, visually — bright, shiny rotogravure photos, not like the photos in the dailies/weeklies. And the stories were much like what you find in the Weekly World News, with happy outcomes.
    According to Wikipedia, “At its peak in 1969, Grit had a total circulation of 1.5 million weekly copies. It was one of the first newspapers in the United States to run color photographs.”

    Actually, the mission statement (1892) is kind of frightening in today’s context:
    “Always keep Grit from being pessimistic. Avoid printing those things which distort the minds of readers or make them feel at odds with the world. Avoid showing the wrong side of things, or making people feel discontented. Do nothing that will encourage fear, worry or temptation… Wherever possible, suggest peace and good will toward men. Give our readers courage and strength for their daily tasks. Put happy thoughts, cheer and contentment into their hearts.”

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  11. MarkH said on June 8, 2006 at 10:58 am

    Interesting, Joody.

    So, at GRIT, we can safely say, “no news is GOOD news”.

    Maybe….

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  12. nancy said on June 8, 2006 at 11:02 am

    No, it’s “all news is good news.”

    Where did that name come from, anyway? From the crummy paper stock? Ol’ fashioned American flintiness? To me, even as a kid, it always sounded like something vaguely Cletus-y. My parents read the National Observer.

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  13. John said on June 8, 2006 at 12:43 pm

    Capper’s Weekly (now monthly under the name Cappers) was a much more Cletus newspaper.

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  14. Ann said on June 8, 2006 at 2:56 pm

    As a long-time reader of the Marquette (MI) Mining Journal, your former co-workers have my condolences.

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  15. MarkH said on June 8, 2006 at 3:59 pm

    Yes, Nance, by THEIR “definition” (judgment), ALL news is GOOD news. That’s my point; (Gr)it ain’t news.

    But, I think you knew that….:)

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  16. joodyb said on June 9, 2006 at 11:59 am

    I originally thought GRIT had something to do with the rotogravure/plating process. but i think it’s just the determination thing, given the mission statement, which remains intact in the mag form. I also thought maybe it meant something in German, because it was founded by a German immigrant. apparently not.

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  17. Dave said on June 10, 2006 at 9:57 am

    When you receive the Friday News-Sentinel and it’s not got much more heft to it than the Tuesday edition, you have to think the end is near, regardless of owner. I think this owner is only a means to a postponement of the inevitable, new printing press or not.

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  18. Jill said on June 11, 2006 at 12:34 am

    I remember that Grit had in its ads in the back of comic books a line that only boys could sell it.
    I never figured that one out, but then I never saw a copy of Grit.
    I think only hicks in the sticks bought it, I lived in Chicago.

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