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WPCNR VICARIOUS VARIETY. By John F. Bailey. March 28, 2009: Even the Princess of Print, the glamorous scoopsteress, the nosy redheaded reporter, globetrotting high-heeled high priestess of truth, justice and dashing romance fell victim to the national downturn in journalism today.
Bottomline, her publisher put Brenda Starr “on furlough” from her position she has held on The Flash for years. Bottomline broke the news personally to the astounded reporter-editor upon her return from Kazookistan where her persistance in finding her nephew’s father, her unrequited love of the past, Basil St. John, lead to exposing an international artifact smuggling ring.
WPCNR is attempting to contact Ms. Starr to see what her plans are for the future. Ms. Starr is the most well-known print personality to fall victim to the dwindling circulation in print ranks. Idol for thousands of women who have followed her exploits with The Flash in the Chicago Tribune, Ms. Starr’s departure is a shock. Long having eclipsed her rival, Lois Lane, as world’s most glamorous reporter, her departure signals the present state of print journalism. Ms. Starr whose ability to negotiate a ledge 50 stories above the street in stilettos has long been admired, while dressed in the smartest fashions while always getting the scoop has been unsurpassed.
Taking a look at the decline in print circulation, WPCNR links it to the national trend towards consolidation of news coverage to simplify advertising sales space and cut down on local editions. Your local paper is no longer local in many cities. In the places WPCNR has traveled there still are still local papers but with more local coverage that retains leadership: papers in Portland, Lowell, Ann Arbor, Nashville, New London, Detroit, Boulder, still have a local feel to them, still print the police blotters, still cover the local school board diligently, but even those papers are changing.
There’s a distinct lack of beat coverage in many papers. A lack of parochial in-depth reporting on trends in the community, and finances. Reporters are stretched thin. The relationships between reporters and organizations they cover are not what they used to be. Papers now attempt to keep readership with those human interest profiles of movers and shaker types, community activists, and popular subjects: pets, children, high school musicals which generally are generally advertisements in disguise, and pathetic attempts to playact at providing “community coverage.”
Papers are moving to the internet, attempting to be more timely in their coverage. However, those internet operations tend to be reprints of print stories, and deliver television news, superficial and one-shotted without adequate follow-up. But again, to move advertising spots on websites the coverage has to be widespread enough to attract a wide audience, hence the big blanket with many patchworks in it approach.
What do furloughed icons do? Does Ms. Starr have an agent? Will she start her own internet website? Will she consider switching to cable television? MSNBC, CNBC?
We understand CNN and FOX News as well as CBS have put in calls to Ms. Starr’s apartment. After all, an animated Ms. Starr on the CBS Evening News would be an excellent replacement for the present program.
Rumors that President Barack Obama was immediately considering her for press secretary could not be confirmed. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was said to be on shaky ground now by Beltway insiders, with Ms. Starr’s international experience and savvy now available to the administration. The Treasury Secretary, much maligned for his charisma gap, feels threatened due to Ms. Starr’s ability to appear fashionably current on a reporter’s salary for many years.
Does this start a whole new life for Ms. Starr?
We hope this frees Ms. Starr from the tyranny of the bottomline-oriented publisher in the era when you’re paying columnists mints and reporters peanuts, returning us to the days of yesteryear when newspapers were NEWSpapers, not Adverpapers. When editors uncovered scandals being perpetrated before the perps got arrested, when deals were exposed at the time they were made, instead of after the fact, when it was too late.
Ms. Starr’s comments on journalism are well-known, and are classics. The sarcastic, irresistible titian scribe, always impeccably attired even the sands of Kazookistan, delivered these pips, as attributed to her by Dale Messick, her creator:
Here are just a few:
“That’s the problem. Reporters aren’t really qualified to do anything.”
“Sometimes I think newspapers care more about profits than people.”
“How many trees would be saved if we outlawed press releases?”
“I don’t need a makeover. I’m just a lowly print reporter!”
“Another 22 year-old reporter who will do twice the work at half the pay?”
“Sometimes I think everything about journalism was better when I was younger — the clothes, the stories, the newsrooms.”
“Assignment and assignation are almost the same word.”
“Ah, my pencil and notepad. Where would reporters be without their social armor?”
“Paper dolls in the paper! At least editors have figured out what it akes to get readers!”
“If more journalists dressed with flair, maybe newspapers wouldn’t so dull.”
