{"id":44118,"date":"2020-08-23T18:11:41","date_gmt":"2020-08-23T18:11:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=44118"},"modified":"2020-08-23T18:11:41","modified_gmt":"2020-08-23T18:11:41","slug":"a-tragic-metaphor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=44118","title":{"rendered":"A tragic metaphor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The picture attached to this blog post symbolizes something that is troubling to me on at least two levels: one of them is personal, the other speaks to a broader phenomenon.<\/p>\n

It came to me today from a friend who is visiting Amarillo with her husband on a family matter. Hubby snapped the picture. I want to call your attention to the graffiti on the second floor of the structure.<\/p>\n

The building used to house the Amarillo Globe-News, where I worked for nearly 18 years as editorial page editor. I left the business in late August 2012. The corporate ownership changed hands a few years later and then the new owners vacated the building. They moved what was left of the newspaper operation into an office suite in a downtown bank tower.<\/p>\n

What you see here is the rotting hulk of what used to house a once-proud community institution.<\/p>\n

The personal impact on me is obvious. I went to the Texas Panhandle in January 1995 full of pi** and vinegar<\/em> and ready to slay some dragons in my new surroundings. The newspaper had a proud tradition. It won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service — which is journalism’s highest award. I was proud to be part of that legacy. We didn’t win any more Pulitzer prizes during my time there, but I developed a lot of close friendships with colleagues and managed to eke out a modestly successful tenure during my time there.<\/p>\n

None of us got into the business of chronicling a community’s story to make lots of money. We did it because of our commitment to the craft we pursued.<\/p>\n

I had a lot of fun there and managed to embark on many fascinating assignments during my time.<\/p>\n

So when I see this picture, my heart breaks on a deeply personal level. The property is up for sale. It’s been on the block for quite some time. I do not know how you repurpose an office building that once served as a newspaper office; the building next to it on the same block once housed the paper’s presses and distribution complex. Good luck with peddling that structure, too.<\/p>\n

The picture symbolizes what has become of print journalism in communities all across the nation. Once-vibrant community institutions are being relegated to empty shells. They become targets of graffiti “artists” intent on making some sort of statement about … whatever.<\/p>\n

Newspaper staffs are slashed. The paper charges whoever is left to cover a community with virtually no one available to actually do the work of reporting on and then writing what they learn.<\/p>\n

Those who once depended on newspapers are turning to other media. I cannot vouch for the veracity of what is being disseminated. Some of it is valid. Some of it, well, is just crap.<\/em><\/p>\n

I am happy to report that I have moved on, as have so many of my former colleagues. I am in a much better place now. I hope they are, too. The remains of the Amarillo Globe-News? The future for the building and the medium it once housed — to my way of thinking — look decidedly less promising.<\/p>\n

I am saddened beyond measure.<\/p>\n\n

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The picture attached to this blog post symbolizes something that is troubling to me on at least two levels: one of them is personal, the other speaks to a broader phenomenon. It came to me today from a friend who is visiting Amarillo with her husband on a family matter. Hubby snapped the picture. I … Continue reading A tragic metaphor<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[179,309,4300],"class_list":["post-44118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-news","tag-agn-media","tag-amarillo-globe-news","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44120,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44118\/revisions\/44120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}