Disappearing Newspapers

I'm working on a project with newspapers for 3-6 year olds, so I started collecting newspapers available in NW Florida. This idea eas developed from a ritual I started in NY when I live there years ago, on Sundays I purchase the NY Times along with the local papers for a quiet day of reading. I wanted to include papers in addition to those papers for the project: the Atlantic Constitution, the Tallahassee Democrat, and the Financial Times, etc.

Therefore, I went to Books-a-Million and Barnes and Noble, and supermarkets for these papers. To my surprise none of these other papers are available. Years ago I realized that the Tallahassee Democrat from the state capitol would be difficult to find in NW Florida. Now many other non-local papers have been curtailed. A worker at Barnes and Noble informed me that the person who used to manage out-of-town papers for the area died several months ago, and no one has replaced him. Could the death of one person cause the demise of sale of some out-of-town papers in my region of the state?

In any case, I'm not on the bandwagon with other people who are ready for the demise of print papers for on-line news. I'm finding the difference to be stark. Daily I read many national papers on line as well as a wide range of blogs. I'm finding that those sources are extremely similar to each other in what is reported. What is missing to me is the visceral effect of having a printed paper with stories that are below the radar of the wire services.

Moreover, there is my personal history with newspapers that is in jeopardy of being lost. Part of my reason for developing the newspaper project for kids was to share stories about newspapers in my life. Although neither of my parents completed high school--my father only completed the 2nd grade before being forced to work on a farm; and my mother completed the 11th grade before being forced to get a job to help the family--we always had a newspaper subscription. I want to show the children how we made transfers of the "funny papers" on Saturdays using soap and a clean sheet of paper. Also, I want to explain to kids how selling the Grit paper proved to be a poor idea for me when I was 13. Of course, I want to tell the students about my travails in trying to outsmarting bullies when I had a paper route.

This history is important, I think. Children want to hear these stories as well. Weaving the value of newspapers to the public and establishing the foundation for reading, e.g., reading left to right, top to bottom, letters form words, words form sentences; as an overview for future learning are also important.

Well, my project may take longer than I anticipated, but I'll find the papers I need to show show variety in format. The good part is that the rush of dopamine in my brain when I have all the parts for the project completed will probably knock me down.