Saturday, January 10, 2009

Why I ain't blogging

For those who actually take the time to read this (all 3 of you), I have been absent - by choice.
I am a professional (albeit retired) journalist and I enjoy when I see my work on newsprint - a haunting and increasingly dinosaur of a conception. I like it when I can fold the page and actually touch my finger to the nasty ink.
It feels real then. This .... does NOT!
Besides, I got much more feedback when peopel took the time to open a newspaper and read the damn thing. I will have such an experience tomorrow in the Dallas Morning News (from an early posting about our late dog, Blarney) and I will feel satisfaction. I can clip it out, paste it into a scrapbook and know that something REAL was written.
And I know I am a select member of a group that CAN write fluently and coherently. On the blogosphere, any idiot with a computer can post and no one is there to edit the language, punctuation or content.
I still have some hardened opinion and I might share them in the coming days...but blogging isn't my "thang."
I am a writer.
Pen to paper.
Typerwriter to paper.
Laserprint to paper.
In real terms.
Not this.

3 comments:

Jodie said...

I love to read your writing wherever you publish it: in the Dallas Morning News, an online blog or on a piece of paper that you hand to me. I know I'm your wife... so you can hand it to me, but I would rather that you post it here so that others can read it too. / Jodie

Paul Malone said...

3 things Chuck.

1. Thank you for the "Good Dog" story in the Dallas Morning News. It touched every part of the animal lover in both my wife and me.

2. I Arrived At Your Blog Because of A Newspaper. Imagine That! I am a technically fluent 54 year old male and a dirty old newspaper got me to a blog.
HELLO Belo.....are you listening.

3. I truly believe you are only in exile. I hear that they teach reading again in the schools and I recently had the WSJ ask me to sponsor a "classroom subscription" to their dirty old newspaper. Sounds to me like the newspapers are still the only way to get all of the story and more stories. It will take a few years before the "Captains of Industry" at the DMN wake up and get back to the paper biz but you'll be in demand and will have to forget about retirement. I'll even buy advertising again when they come to their senses.
Paul in Plano

P.S. Let's raise a glass to Blarney and get you another Jack Russell Terrier to help train you and your wife for years to come.

Chuck B. said...

To Paul Malone,
E-mail me at chuckbloom@hotmail.com so we can continue this discussion in more depth.