Here are questions that inquiring minds really want to know: After the first of the year, when the Deseret News and the Salt Lake Tribune go nearly all-digital, will we still be able to call them newspapers? There will be a lot of news, but not much paper.
So, should we call them news mongers? Digital information services? Magical cyberspace machines that miraculously insert news and information into your computer, phone or tablet? Someone please help me come up with a good name for them.
Also, will we no longer be able to advise politicians to avoid picking fights with those people who buy ink by the barrel and paper by the roll? Won’t be much ink or paper.
Will we still be able to call reporters and editors “ink-stained wretches”?
And, most importantly, when a big story breaks, can a formerly ink-stained wretch still yell across the newsroom, “Stop the presses!”
The silly mailer wars continue. I, along with others, dinged the Utah Democratic Party for sending out boneheaded flyers criticizing Republican legislators for not stopping a bill increasing the sales tax on food, when those legislators actually voted against the bill.
Now, the Utah Republican Party has sent out almost exact replicas of the flyer, only this time criticizing Democrats for not stopping the food tax legislation. Republicans are saying they did it as sort of a joke, to show how preposterous the original Democratic mailer was.
But, really, what’s the point. Yes, it was dumb for the Democrats to do it. But the subtlety of the Republican mailer was lost on a lot of recipients who took it seriously and thought the Republicans were ridiculous for such unfair criticism.
Parting Shot. There’s lots of talk about “shy” Trump voters who aren’t being accounted for in the many surveys showing Biden well ahead of Trump. But might there also be shy Biden voters who don’t want to publicly acknowledge they support Biden? This Hill story makes the case that there are. I’m not so sure. It’s a lot easier in polite society to acknowledge being a Biden voter than a supporter of that barbarian Donald Trump.
If you have a comment, an item you think should be publicized, or just want to tell me I’m an idiot, shoot me a message at [email protected].
