With news that mega-developer Mike Harrah is probably not going to join the in-house team that wants to buy the Orange County Register in bankruptcy court in a couple of weeks and thereby keep it away from barbarians in Los Angeles, this week’s Orange Feathers editorial cartoon is even more poignant that usual. We turn the mic over to longtime Weekly artist Bob Aul to explain his thinking:
It’s a shame that print media is biting the dust. Have you looked at a copy of Time or Nat Geo lately? Getting pretty thin. And the LA Times is not much bigger than 11×17 any more. You know what I love about print? It’s that shit doesn’t move from where you just saw it—or disappear altogether. It’s that you can hold it in your hands and turn those lovely pages. It’s that it doesn’t take any power source to read save for a light bulb or the sun. And it doesn’t burn your eyes out looking at it. That said though, it was pretty tragically funny what [former publisher Aaron] Kushner tried to do with the Reg in light of print’s terminal condition. Maybe he was truly a naive optimist who thought he could jump-start a dying patient. Or more likely just a bamboozler. Whatever the case, the organization left in his wake has suffered serious hemorrhaging of both finances and personnel, and it’s going to take more than defibrillation to get this much-needed pup well again.
Gracias, Bob!
I’ve got $42 in my savings account right now; who wants to submit a bit for the Reg? Think of the ratings!
