By Bob Walsh
I was born in Oakland, California. I was smart enough to get out when I was about six but we were still close by so I viewed the Tribune as my home-town newspaper for many years.
The vicissitudes of the newspaper business have been major. The Trib merged much of their news operation with other bay area papers, including the Hayward Daily Review, the San Jose Mercury News and the Contra Costa Times. It isn’t actually going away completely, but the name will be gone very soon. It will soon be the East Bay Times.
The Tribune was actually a pretty competent fish wrapper. They won a couple of Pulitzers along the way and did a pretty good job of reporting the local news and political scene. They didn’t have the idiotic liberal bent that one might expect from a paper that functions in the area that spawned the Black Panthers and Ebonics.
I admit I like newspapers. Real newspapers. I subscribe to one and regularly buy others off the rack. The business is getting harder and harder. Advertising is almost all gone to the internet. Many people get their news from Yahoo on their hand-held electronic devices. If it wasn’t on TMZ it didn’t happen.
Twitter is where news is now, to many people, most of who have the attention span of a goldfish.
In addition, about 20% of the staff is going bye-bye. The conglomeration and melding of the news business is a harsh reality. There are now major American cities that have zero print newspapers. My opinion, for what that may be worth, is that it is a loss to society.
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