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Sunday, March 1, 2009

Recycled Newsprint Mask Leads To Questions About Future of Print Newspapers

Left: Photo of original recycled newspaper papier mache mask created by Mizu Sugimura. 

While doing a little pre-spring cleaning at home last week this papier mache mask I made a few years ago turned up. The theme of a city (i.e. civilized life as we knew) in flames is somewhat appropriate an analogy for those of us who were raised and have become attached to holding and flipping through physical pages of newsprint with our morning cup of coffee.

For those of you who read your newspaper on a I-Pod or Kindle or another version of a contemporary electronic devices to access what's going on in the world, it appears to this jaded and completely outmodeled observer to have a totally different ambiance!

Perhaps this thought is something that briefly flew in and out the mind of one of those dinosaurs back when mammals began to take over the earth: Not to worry old boys and old girls, you're so totally on your way out!

There's a number of interesting articles popping up on my radar which I'll be the first to admit is not the best, about what kind of brilliant thinking may going on in the greater world outside the little room where I'm blogging this missive as to how those with sharper minds are poised to fill the yawning gap in the universe that is being left behind.

One very worthwhile example can be found in today's online Sunday edition of The Seattle Times on the editorial page ("Repacking the news is not journalism", Sunday, March 1, 2009).
However you choose to get your news these days it is worth your time to even on an occasional basis endeavor to keep abreast about what it is that is actually developing.

At the very least, it's a yet another chance to witness history being made. With so many areas of daily life in the state of relative upheaval and change, this is one area of the universe that may be called upon to play as government (for example) a more increasing and critical role at a time when how, where or from whom all the news that used to be fit to print can be discerned.

4 comments:

Lorraine Hart said...

I do like to hold and fold a paper for reading with my cuppa. I still cut articles and columns and stash them in my journals...part of the map for my descendants to follow (if they are curious to know) when I'm gone.

It's a conundrum that reading deserves to be free...but good writers deserve to make a living. Sigh.

Stephanie Frieze said...

I love holding a newspaper in my hands the way I love holding a book. We may be wittnessing the end of an era. The news is free on radio and television, but I wish that publishing a paper weren't so expensive and that people still bought them. Where in the heck would I get my Sunday coupons??

JosephMcG said...

You are so very right, Mizu. I spend a lot of time reading and listening to the news via ciber space... at the same time my hands are starting to get too hold to move in the digital world with agility...

and I need time to highlight material, study it more deeply, meditate on it...

newspapers are important to me... still I know where the money is that is where you will find information... the digital world appears to be engulfing us in pictures, words, and sounds that disappear with a downstroke of the finger.

Well... people will never be able to stop connecting with one another... perhaps we shall end up surprised at what facebook, text messaging, and podcasting will create...
Joseph

Kim Thompson said...

Hi all:

I love newspapers, too, but I think we are now at the point of no return.

Love the sculpture, Mizu.