A to Z Theme 2016

For my 2016 A to Z theme I used a meme that I ran across on the blog of Bridget Straub who first saw it on the blog of Paula Acton. This meme is a natural for me to use on my memoir blog. It's an A to Z concept and it's about me. No research and nothing complicated. I'm given twenty six questions or topics to discuss that are about me.

In April I kept my posts short and uncomplicated. In the midst of it all you might learn a few things about me that you didn't previously know.

Saturday, June 27, 2015

My Own Personal Newspaper

English: New York, New York. Newsroom of the N...
 New York, New York. Newsroom of the New York Times newspaper. Reporters and rewrite men writing stories, and waiting to be sent out. Rewrite man in background gets the story on the phone from reporter outside. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)


My Own Personal Newspaper

         I've had this fascination with newspapers since early childhood.  My parents always had newspapers in the house and I liked to look through them.  There were the comic pages of course, and the advertisements, but once I learned how to read a whole new world was opened to me.

        The photojournalism was what often attracted my attention.  Some dramatic image would arouse my interest enough for me to read the story.  Then there were all the other curious little stories that were short, but filled with enough information to get my young brain working to figure out the rest of the details.

         Then, starting in fourth grade, current events became a standard assignment on Monday mornings.  We'd be required to clip an article to present to the class.  The presentation part would make me nervous, but I loved searching out the strangest stories I could find.  There was often duplication of stories among the other students, but rarely did anyone bring in the same story as I brought.  I didn't care much for major world events or politics, but I relished finding anything that was kind of "out there"

        Sometimes for fun I would put together my own newspaper.    Once, inspired by the animated television show The Flintstones I created my own version of a prehistoric caveman era newspaper.  The artwork was all drawn in colored pencils--yes, this was an advanced newspaper all in color!  On another occasion my newspaper edition was a facsimile of what my vision of the newspaper of the future might look like.   Maybe my thinking wasn't too prescient in that the edition was still on paper rather than some electronic type media, but it was easier to use paper in order to write the stories and draw out the illustrations.

          In a way, my discovery of the medium of blogging is like being able to have my own publication.    Much like a newspaper or magazine I can present stories and add images.  I'm both reporter and editor.   The control of managing my own blog allows me a far greater creativity than composing a publication by hand.   The best part is that the potential of actual readership is far greater than those single copy "newspaper" editions that I would pass around to my friends and family to read.

        Blogging has opened a fantastic new world of possibilities to all of us who have longed to see our words on published pages and to have readers who actually let us know they've read what we've written.  And even if the readers aren't there, the digital evidence is there to be potentially found by readers someday in the future.

          Of course, I'd much rather be published in an actual printed edition of some mass produced and distributed newspaper or magazine.  That would be the greatest thrill of all.  For now though the blogging will have to do.    Actually it's not all that bad of a way to be published.  And it is practice for that future publication position that I long to one day have.

           Did you ever create your own homemade newspapers or magazines when you were a child?   Did you work on a school publication?    Do you treat blogging as your own personal publication?

11 comments:

  1. Only once in 5th grade we were assigned a project to make a magazine or something and mine was kind of based on Highlights Magazine that I loved in the dentist office. I absolutely dreaded current events in 6th grade. I loathed searching the paper and doing the presentations. I've always been more of a magazine person. In 11th grade I desperately wanted to take Chorus class esp. since they were going to Scotland and England but my mother forced me into Journalism. I hated every minute of it. I usually volunteered to go to the graphics dept to do the layout and printing. But I didn't like being assigned stories. I didn't like to write, and I didn't know how to end stories. That's the same problem I have now. If you notice, a lot of my blog posts end abruptly b/c I don't know how to end it.

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    1. JoJo, I consider you fortunate having had that opportunity to take journalism. We didn't have that class in our high school and I wanted to take it. I should have gotten on the school paper staff, but I guess I was afraid or something.

      Your posts don't really end all that abruptly. Most stories in the paper do because if you think about it, anything that is not a feature story isn't really over yet anyway.

      Lee

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  2. I love newspapers too. I love the print medium. It means so much more to me to hold it and flip through it and smell the ink. I read the newspaper at breakfast every morning, and on the days it arrives late and I have to read it online...I find the experience disappointing.

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    1. Liza, I hate reading papers and other media online and usually avoid it. However I also stopped taking the L.A. Times because it annoys me so. I get the Sunday paper and that actually gets me through the week. I too love the medium, but so much of it is changing for the worse.

      Lee

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  3. Reading this post, I was thinking to myself, "Lee would have loved journalism as a career." You are so interested in what people will read, why they read it, etc. And I can totally imagine Kid Lee making his own newspaper.

    In some ways, blogging is the new newspaper.

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    1. Robin, I agree about blogging being our personal means to journalistic and editorial expression. There is so much potential to what we can do with it and having everything formatted in the blogging platforms gives it all an appearance of legitimacy.

      Lee

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  4. I never wrote my own newspapers, though I did once make a bunch of flyers explaining why I would be the best choice for ruler of the world. :)
    I took a journalism class in high school and we had to cut articles and create articles, which was pretty fun but I never got over the anxiety of standing in front of the class to present.
    When I pick newspapers up for coupons, usually I read the local and arts sections. I think blogging can be like newspapers, own personal ones, but I don't really use mine for it. Not really, I guess.

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    1. Madilyn, but if you are providing news about yourself or your commentary about things in our world you are providing a sort of journalistic service. We all usually have a goal of expanding our readership much like a regular publication would strive for.

      Lee

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  5. I could have written this post! I've been fascinated by newspapers for a very long time as well. When I had essays published in a newspaper it was one of the highlights of my writing career. I always thought it would be great to have a regular column in a newspaper. But now blogging has replaced papers in many ways. Newspapers are struggling to survive while blogging is thriving.

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    1. Karen, I think newspapers will have to find ways of embracing blogging and similar mediums in order to keep up with future trends. I look at the blogs of most newspapers and see how they struggle and haven't managed to keep up in the same way as those in the regular blogging community. The newspaper age is definitely changing.

      Lee

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  6. Oh write on! I couldn't wait to be able to read what had so engrossed the grownups every Sunday! Sure I enjoyed the funnies for awhile, but there was always that thrill of the unknown pages :-) Never did work on the school newspaper but they 'published' some of my creative writing work. As enjoyable as your blogs are you'd have a terrific newspaper! But you're right, times have changed. It's hard to read something you haven't already seen on the TV or online newsfeeds.

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Arlee Bird