Hello in there, Hello…

Good morning, Netizens…

Nearly every picture Jeanie or I choose to grace Community Comment has spoken to one or the other of us, has formed a visual image of something about which we recognize and feel passionately. Today’s picture is one of those where it has hidden meaning, and thus speaks to me about something I am certain its author(s) had no intention whatsoever of implying.

This picture is one of European Central Bank President Jean Claude Trichet who gestures as he looks out at the audience during a media conference at an emergency financial summit at the Elysee Palace in Paris. The global financial crisis is forcing the leaders of France, Britain, Germany and Italy to come together for an emergency summit in Paris. But differences on how to respond to the economic turmoil could drive them apart. (October 04, 2008) Associated Press

Then again, given the upheaval taking place at the Spokesman-Review over the last few days, I am reminded this morning that we are, after all, as much in an information vacuum as we were when the initial resignations of Editor Steve Smith and Carla Savalli became public news. We are on the outside, peering inward toward the place we identify as being part of our selves: Jeanie, because she grew up in a newspaper family, and myself because I once seriously considered a career in journalism.

Writers must write, but because society is changing so, print journalists are becoming like the dinosaurs. Are print journalists an endangered species, as these layoffs suggest? It does seem that way, doesn’t it?

Not only are we peering into the newsroom wondering if our friends have caught the ax this time, but wondering if the news will continue to worsen. If so, and I believe it is true, perhaps someday I’ll be walking down Riverside and see a face I once read each day in the paper, and, thus fulfill the words of songwriter John Prine, who once wrote so eloquently:

So if you’re walking down the street sometime
And spot some hollow ancient eyes,
Please don’t just pass ‘em by and stare
As if you didn’t care, say, “Hello in there, hello.”

Dave