Dear John, I feel your pain.
This weekend as I was enjoying your Sunday paper, I happened upon your piece about Legal Notices. My, my did it take me back to some of my own troubles in this area.
If you don’t recognize my name, I’m the former Editor in Chief of the Chauvet Cave in southern France. There was a time when I would not need to offer this introduction, for my cave paintings were known far and wide. Not only did we paint legal notices, we painted classified ads, many sales people sold cave space and painters (my God did we have painters!) all working to further our mighty endeavor. People traveled from far and wide to visit my cave and pay their respects to the might of cave painting!
All was just and right back in those days. You knew where you stood and when it came to things like people selling their cars and housewares or posting a legal notice, the population knew just where to look, in my damn cave! Sure access was always an issue. People had to actually come to my cave to view these postings and bask in the glow of our work, but at least it was real.
Then, oh I don’t know, maybe 2000 years ago or something, some little bastard starting moving in on my turf. The heathens created PAPER! At first I thought is was a fad, It seemed so flimsy. For God’s sake, why would you look at one of those damn things when you could find shelter in my cave! And, you know the rest of the story, slowly people stopped coming to my cave. The numbers dropped and I started seeing folks walking around the STREETS carrying these damn PAPERS!
“They are sooo easy to carry and read wherever I like. I don’t have to walk up that damn mountain anymore just to view legal notices.” Oh yea, all the kids were reading those things! I heard it all. I decided to pick one up myself. What was the first damn thing I saw, MY LEGAL NOTICES!
OK I thought, don’t panic. This will pass. But it did not John. So, just like you, I decided I needed to do something about this affront to my business and livelihood, I sued the Bastards. Every last parchment creator had to go!
And, worst of all, Dear John, I became obsessed with painting about my position. I filled every spare space on my cave with reasons people should not be reading these papers. I painted beautiful stick figures about why they should continue to use the Cave for notices, ads, everything! I bled paint.
John, I understand your frustration as you watch those lawyers use “New Media” to leave you behind. I fought that fight, I sued every last one of those little bastards and like you I tried to hold back the tide of “Progress.”
But Johnny Boy, I’m here to tell you, choose a different fight my friend. Make friends with your fellow cave painters, and other people who distribute information. It’s taken me 2000 years to see it John but you can still have a place in the world. There’s no need to keep hiding in your cave.
Yours Truly,
Neander Thal
This article appears in Sep 20-26, 2012.
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This is too funny.
The Bulletin is a joke. Just stop buying it. Often there is no honesty or integrity in what is published by the Bulletin. There is no reason to support this business the way it is run. A good daily newspaper in Bend would be great. Too bad the Bulletin is not it.
Neander illustrated a very good point about our outdated local newspaper. It is so conservative & sanitized that I actually get nauseous after attempting to digest it. Bend could really move up a notch and join the future with a new news source that did not contain John Costas’ drivel.
Neander, you’re a genius. Pulitzer Prize winning article, IMHO. I’ve long been disenchanted with the Bulletin, but just when I think about pulling the plug on my subscription, I think about the delivery person who faithfully tosses my paper onto my driveway every day around 4 a.m., often double-sleeving when inclement weather strikes. And I think–well, I’m helping keep him/her employed, all in all not a bad thing. Thing is, while I read Costa’s latest tome, I rarely actually peruse the Bulletin. The stress is just too much!
Does anyone know if you can still sell cave space for advertising? My mom has two caves on her land and this could be just the jumpstart she’s looking for. Or maybe the source can give me Neander Thals email address?
This commentary is incredibly funny. Reminds me of jokes my grandpa would make about push-button telephones without cords, and how exciting it was when “Wonder Phone” (aka call-waiting) was invented.
I’d like to also say that I thoroughly enjoyed my job at the Bulletin while employed there. The sales staff, the journalists and photographers, the administration… all were very professional and got along cohesively.
With all media, you’ll choose to agree or disagree with their stance when they editorialize, but to blanket an entire company with a comment such as “there is no reason to support this business the way it is run”? Sounds like a personal vendetta.
I also thoroughly enjoy reading The Source Weekly, even though I may disagree with their editorials from time to time. It doesn’t mean that I’d wish them ill will or failure.
To each their own.
It won’t be long until The Bulletin occupies a double-wide out on Cooley Road, with a mimeograph in the garage. Too bad.
Costa lost me when for good when Doonesbury first suggested that GWB might be an idiot and Costa blew his top, apologizing that the strip hadn’t been chopped, promising that it would be “next time.” Not exactly the attitude you want your local daily editor to hold.
Since then, I realize that I’ve never known of a “real” newspaper more willing than The Bulletin to spin news content it doesn’t like–through omission, through inaccurate headlines and pull-quotes, through selective editing and trimming, and more.
And that’s the news. Don’t get me started on the juvenility of the house-written editorials (an endorsement of McCain with zero mention of Palin?) and the one-note, unrelenting, un-nuanced thud of the editorial pages themselves.
There’s a reason that The Bulletin rarely wins journalistic prizes of any consequence. You need only pick it up (off a neighboring table; don’t buy it!) to see why.