Is Legacy Media Really Tuscany in Disquise?

On September 8, 2001, I was reading the New York Times. Columnist Anthony Lewis wrote a wonderfully descriptive piece on his love of Italy’s Tuscany and Umbria regions. It reads in part—“The silvery olive groves, the fields of sunflowers, the vineyards, the stone houses and barns……….Italy is evidence that there is more to life—a civilized life—than the unregulated competition of the market. There are values of humanity, culture, beauty, community that may require deviations from the cold logic of market theory.” He went on to lament the growth of corporate farms and waxed poetic over the small agricultural units he saw in the those two beautiful Italian provinces. I got his point—there is more to life than turning a buck and sometimes we need a reminder about what is important and quality of life should generally outweigh scheming for income.

I remember actually clipping the article out (no convenient online folders for me then) and vowing to visit Italy soon. Three days later, the 9/11 tragedy struck and the article and its message was submerged by glaring headlines. Some years later, I found the hard copy of the article as I was preparing to move. A few years later, my wife and I and other family members visited both Tuscany and Umbria and loved them. Also, friends put us on to the beautiful  walled city of Lucca where we spent some wonderful days. A return visit is definitely on our bucket list. One thing that I notice as a demographer was how old the areas were getting. Young people have gravitated to the bigger cities for job opportunities and those remaining tend to be quite old in many instances. So, the memorable lifestyle afforded in many of the villages that we visited was threatened as the low Italian birthrate was well below zero population growth (children needed to maintain a level population).

I bring this story up not to defend the free market system although I am normally happy to do it.  Rather, as conventional media is dying in the U.S. and other Western nations, a part of our lifestyle is fading as well. I am especially referring to metropolitan newspapers and selected magazines. Today, some 40+% of Americans get their news from Facebook. Call me old fashioned but I like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post which require two or more sources on their fact-finding. Investigative journalism is still important in a free society but as legacy media withers it is largely disappearing unless the story is huge. I also like to ponder a TIME magazine essay now and then even though the news in the publication (now sadly very thin) is not a few hours old.

The immediacy that the internet and contemporary news sources provide has its place and will only get stronger. I, for one, still savor, however, the nuance and distance that the printed reports in some old line media still provide.

To all of my American readers who make up nearly 45% of the Media Realism audience, may I wish you a happy Independence Day!

If you would like to contact Don Cole directly, you may reach him at doncolemedia@gmail.com