Post it

The New York Times, by some estimates, on it's last legs as a print dinosaur, has an interesting and incredibly sad story this morning. The bad news, The New York Post is ailing. The good news, the New York Post is ailing. The story is here.

When just a young college student, I spent a year or so out of college and living in New York City. One of the joys of that time was subsisting completely on carrot cake. Every morning would be spent eating a large slice of cake, looking for a job, jogging down to Wall Street and spending the subway ride home reading copies of New York Post stories that fellow riders would leave behind.

At the time I was completely unaware that the Post had a political agenda, but what I liked was the ability to tell a story in language that was both entertaining and flowery. What could be better than body parts found in dance clubs? Maybe shocked reporting that kittens can survive falls from 10 stories or more.

When I started to cover crime for a freelance news business I would sometimes end up at a bridge where a depressed person was perched, suicidal and talking with police. Almost inevitably a New York Post reporter would show up, get some cameras out of a chained car trunk and look through the telephoto lense, then his watch and then scream out, "jump, I got to get to the office."

Over the years the Post has been something I could rely on, not for news coverage, but for something to talk about. The post has never pretended to be above it all, reporting facts and just the facts. No, the Post becomes a part of the story, using terse language and photos to enhance the story they want to tell. It's almost like a drunk friend who comes up to you at a party and wants to tell you what a bitch the hostess is, in a loud voice for all the hear. The Post is that drunk friend.

I know newspapers in general don't seem to have a clue how to survive in the new media world. All of them are suffering and for good reason. The days of ink stained fingers are history and for a newspaper to survive it has to quit the newspaper concept and come up with something that will work online. It is that simple. The Post may yet survive because in many ways the type of sloppy work they do so well will always be needed, in the new media format it will flourish.

What will be sad is riding a subway someday and not having a Post to pick up and read while I wait for my station. Then again, I can always find something to read on my Iphone.