Throw out the lifeline with hand quick and strong:
Why do you tarry, why linger so long?
See! he is sinking; oh, hasten today
And out with the lifeboat! away, then away!
(Refrain:)
Throw out the lifeline! Throw out the lifeline!
Someone is drifting away;
Throw out the lifeline! Throw out the lifeline!
Someone is sinking today.
– From the hymn by Edwin S. Ufford, 1888.
Today I was one of six lecturers at the annual kickoff symposium for “Know Your Chicago,” a 61-year-old fall tour series run out of the University of Chicago’s Graham School of General Studies. What quickly became clear as I delivered my talk, “When Worlds Collide: The Journalist, Technology, and the Audience,” was that this particular audience … several hundred folks who were mostly my age and older, mostly women … was deeply invested in being reassured about their morning newspapers.
In fact, I was only interrupted by applause twice, and then only in the Q&A: once when I said I was one of those folks who valued having a printed paper in the morning, and once when I opined that some newspapers would certainly be around as long as I am (or words to that effect). This after I had pointed out that Col. McCormick’s classic definition of a newspaper —
“The newspaper is an institution developed by modern civilization to present the news of the day, to foster commerce and industry, to inform and lead public opinion, and to furnish that check upon government which no constitution has ever been able to provide.”
— really didn’t require that the newspaper actually exist in newsprint form. What folks cherish is the idea of a newspaper, whether the Colonel’s or someone else’s.
