I set my clock early this morning and got up with the eager anticipation of an old time bride and groom on their wedding night. I live for mornings like this. My beloved Spartans had made the Final 4 in the NCAA tournament the day before. Like similar days in my past, I was expecting to find the stories splashed across the front page of my morning Detroit Free Press. I expected a full sports section dedicated to MY TEAM.
I got out on my porch and stood there dumbfounded. There was nothing there. Then, the realization hit me. Today was the first day the Free Press stopped delivering a daily paper. It will only come Thursday, Friday and Sunday now. Like other papers around the country, they are failing. Too many people these days, especially the young, get all their news online and are not buying papers any more.Me? I've read a paper every morning of my adult life. I turn 50 next week. The magic is gone. Like modern couples (who don't wait for their wedding day to consummate the relationship any more), there will no longer by any mystery and anticipation on my special days. So, I downloaded a few stories online and took them with me to read over breakfast (our home computer isn't a laptop). It wasn't the same. It was over way too soon.
Then it got worse. Before on days like this, I could listen to the local sports talk stations jabber on and on all day about every little nuance of my team's great accomplishment and break down all that was to come. Some months ago, the sports talk radio I listened to, WDFN, dropped all local programing, fired the local talk jocks and went all national syndicated programing. Part of the Clear Channelization of America. We have another sports talk station, but for whatever reason, their morning show doesn't talk about sports. They talk about local politics and local business and goofy morning talk prattle you can hear on every morning show in America.
It's maddening. Something has been lost. It's not just happening here, it's happening everywhere. In general, I love the digital revolution. And to be honest, I probably won't renew the trade magazines we subscribe to here in the office, because they sit in my mailbox for months at a time. I get most of my trade news and views through my own searches, through my twitter updates and through the email newsletters I subscribe to. That's part of the problem. I'm part of the problem. But is it a problem or something an old guy like me just needs to get used to. And more importantly, what's a local sports enthusiast to do? Will national brand name teams, college or pros, gain more prominence over local. Or will we just migrate to our favorite sites, our Facebook fan pages and Twitter sports follows? What do you think?
Mike McClure, ECD & frustrated sports fan
