Rest in Print (R.I.P.)

There are five stages of grief after a loss: denial/shock, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Something the consumers and producers of media culture have known for a while now: newspapers are dying.

Go ahead, click the link. It’s not shocking news. No need to get angry about it, either, because the world has manifested into some ticking, blinking matrix of vastly-facilitated communication that has made paper on the endangered list by natural technological selection.

If you work the print-writing field, it’s understandable to be a bit disheartened by this dead-end to your lifelong aspiration of getting your fingerprints rather than a mouse all over dummy layouts before each deadline. But you can still bargain with online press to keep this dream alive for you–if you promise to stay ahead of the curve, and prove you can see around corners (better than Bootsy Collins), because you’re not just any old printing press dinosaur, no!

The nation moves on quick, you know. It seemed like the Mesozoic era when I read the newspaper like a daily prayer every weekday in high school, and these fingertips that I now type with were once gray with ink until my third-period class…but there’s no use getting depressed about that! The “good old days” are now! We’ve all accepted it. I guess that means we’ve come full-circle in mourning the loss of newspapers…before they’re even confirmed as flat-lined.

Flip the page to see what I did during my own journalism stint.

Here is a premature farewell to a few print articles I wrote for the Daily Cougar and the Houston Chronicle. Keep in mind that, as an intern at the Chron, I did not oversee the final cuts/edits with these pieces–just sayin’. I acknowledge they weren’t great to begin with, but here they are, a few shorties-but-goodies.

Click the links for the online version (what else?):

Color blocking is the season’s hot trend

Zen master: Religion distracts from universal truth

Black History Month profile: Beyonce Knowles and at HellYeah Beyonce

Juicy tidbits and Versatile lemons add zest and even more lemon love

Love story: Couple waltzes through troubles, heads down aisle (Someone on the editing line made “Sacred Heart” into “Scared Heart.” Wow…)

Love story: Lisa and John Gay find joy in life’s little pleasures

Flipper’s story exposes piracy (I wanted to call it “Flipper’s story not a flop”… too silly? Someone thought so…)

Black History month profile: Lightnin Hopkins

Love story: Father knows best in this relationship

HISD schools scramble to pay for band instruments (contributing reporter)

Personal tragedy turns woman to healing ministry

Love story: Mindy and Ron Black knew they were right for each other

….R.I.P.

Drawn by me in 2005 for a Houston Chronicle Political Cartoon Contest (Honorable Mention)