The Middletown Journal building, now vacant...
By Kevin Williams
This is the stately old Middletown Journal building that I used to work in as a young cub reporter circa 1990. Man, those were the glory days of newspapers. Al Gore was several years away from invented the internet (just a joke!) so people still depended on print for their news. The Journal building was the informational nerve center of our town. People called the paper for answers to anything and everything. Back in those days it was still an afternoon newspaper and us reporters would work on our stories in the morning, file them by around 10:30 a.m., work with the copy desk on perfecting them and by around 12:30 the entire building would shudder as the mammoth presses roared to life. And all of us reporters would sit at our desks and read the day's paper by around 2 p.m. And then the afternoons were spent working on stories for the next day's paper, so the cycle would start all over again. I was only 17-years-old when I landed my first reporter gig and my editors let me cut my teeth on everything: school board meetings, fires, floods, investigative work, and garden variety features. I was a good reporter, I thought.....On Sunday mornings, the paper was printed around 1 a.m. and if I had a particularly exciting story in the paper, I remember driving down to The Journal building for a just after midnight hot-off-the-press copy.
I once dreamt of owning my own chain of newspapers. But that was before the internet came along and gutted newspapers. Today, The Journal building sits empty. In fact, The Middletown Journal is no more, it was folded into the nearby Hamilton paper a couple of years ago and rechristened The Journal-News. Gone, but not forgotten.....
Pam Shelton
I agree that the newspapers are getting to be a thing of the past. I would imagine when the older generation dies off, the majority of home subscribers in my opinion, there won't be many who still subscribe. And, here in Cincinnati, they keep raising the price. I was only subscribing to the Sunday edition, and because they wouldn't let me pay a once yearly bill, they raised the price. They wanted me to make monthly payments. So I cancelled.
It would seem to me that the papers would work a little harder to keep what subscribers they do have.
Kevin
I do agree with you on this, Pam....instead of trying to lure new subscribers, papers just seem to be watering down their product which is only accelerating their decline...
Virginia
I had been taking the special paper that was supposed to be Sundays and holidays but somehow Wednesdays worked in there... and then it was constant bugging to try to get me to take a daily paper. I put the paper on hold because I wanted a break to see if I'd miss it...they continued to charge me for the paper because I had internet access even though I never logged-in to read it during the time I asked them to hold it. That did it for me. They kept calling and sending me requests to come back so I started sending the requests with LEAVE ME ALONE written on them and sent in their postage paid envelopes. After 3 of those, they finally got the message. It made me sad because I actually like to read a real newspaper but I'm the customer and they were treating me like I was their purse.
Kevin
Virginia - What newspaper did you get, I forget?
Tim Robertson
Kevin, I didn't realize this building was empty now. I should have with all the changes the local paper has gone thru. I know they print them on Rt 4 just south of Liberty Fairfield Rd but is that also the main office too? I remember going past the old Hamilton Journal building and seeing the presses running. That goes back many years.
Kevin
Tim, I remember when they moved the printing press to route 4...all us reporters were invited down for an open house, cake, and it was a huge, huge state-of-the-art new press....but it didn't last, that facility was sold years ago and now makes labels for a company, the Journal is printed in Franklin now...always good to hear from you!
Tim Robertson
Thanks for that info. You jogged my memory. I do recall them moving to Franklin.
Kathy Barnes
I still get a daily newspaper Monday through Friday. It's our town newspaper. I do have to pay for it and I really enjoy it.
Kathy
Kevin
Kathy, refresh my memory, what paper do you get?
Vickie Bennett
Hi Kevin,
congrats on you and your wife's new addition. Look forward to picture of the 2 girls. I, too am a newspaper junkie. I read 3-4 daily now online and by print on the weekends. We still have our local paper here in Harrisonburg, VA, The Daily News Record. If you want to know something to do on the weekends, you can find it on the back of the paper. I also read the Roanoke Times and my hometown the Southwest Virginia Enterprize which is mailed 2 times a week to the resident of Wythe County. I always read all the obits and have often thought it was my calling to write them. My high school English teacher's husband owned the local paper for many years and then family later but was sold after all their deaths.
I enjoy sharing articles from the papers with my students in middle school detention and have shared and ready many of yours to them. They need to know how good they have it with electricity, cars, phones and more. Good luck on your musings and nap when you can.
Kevin
Ah, Vickie, you are a quintessential consumer of print and I do love print, but it is undeniably disappearing....
Carol Morris
We are of the "older generation" and subscribe to two daily papers. My husband reads every word printed in them. I only read one. The papers keep getting smaller, some days only 8 pages. I know there are still some people who don't have computers so will soon have no source for news. Thank goodness I have my Mac so I can receive your emails and Amish365!!
Kevin
Carol, the papers do keep getting smaller, what is your hometown paper again?