BoSacks Speaks Out: When the Paper Itself Was the News

Michael Weissenstein nailed something most analysts miss: the decline of the physical newspaper isn’t just a business story. It’s a cultural amputation. We’re not merely losing newsprint; we’re losing the daily rituals that stitched us together. The morning rustle at the breakfast table. The proud clipping of a kid’s first appearance in the local section. The universal utility of wrapping glassware in yesterday’s headlines. These weren’t just habits, they were communal touchpoints. Digital news, for all its speed, hasn’t replaced a single one of them.

What gets me is how the printed paper shaped our attention in ways the algorithm never will. You went in for the box scores and came out with a foreign affairs briefing. You paused mid-bite to read an editorial you didn’t know you needed. The newspaper forced serendipity. It trained curiosity. Today’s feeds, in contrast, serve us a warmed-over loop of what we already “like.” The loss is quiet, but the civic consequences could be thunderous.

Weissenstein also reminds us that newspapers had a second life beyond journalism. Shelters lined cages with them. Artists sculpted with them. Parents saved them as proof that their kids once made the honor roll. These weren’t just scraps of paper, they were artifacts of a shared world. The printed page didn’t just report reality; it became part of it.

Now the presses fall silent while data centers hum in their place, and we should ask ourselves a simple but uncomfortable question: what are we building that is equally human? Efficiency is not presence. Convenience is not meaning. And somewhere along the way, we confused speed with substance.

The challenge ahead isn’t about ink versus pixels. It’s about purpose. Any medium, print, digital, or whatever comes next, must make the world feel real enough to clip, save, and pass down. When journalism does that, it survives. When it doesn’t, no platform can save it.