Farewell to WCBS News 880

This blog title will not mean much to anyone who has not lived in New York City these past 60 or so years.  But for us who grew up in New York City, or spent time living there, it is a sad time.

I found this out from a high school friend yesterday.

On August 25 at midnight, New York City bid farewell to WCBS News Radio 880, after 100 years of service. The last 57 years were all news, all the time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I was entering high school when the format changed to all news in August, 1967.  Even now, it was still broadcasting the old fashioned way. Listeners got information, not just sound bites or political opinions.

This video contains a series of air checks on the final night of broadcast.  There's no need to listen to all 15 plus minutes, but the last three or so minutes almost brought me to tears. 

"Our news desert is getting bigger and drier", the announcer (Wayne Cabot, 36 year veteran of WCBS News 880) said.  After a few more tributes, he got personal, as the Beatles song "Imagine" played towards the end.  He talked about how he found WCBS for the first time during a trip to New York City. “I thank my dad for driving me into New York City in 1978,” Cabot said.   “Parents—you never know what impact these random acts of love and attention may have on your children.” 

Cabot reminded us that local journalism is in danger.   He remarked, "With each closing newspaper, radio newsroom, TV newsroom, magazine, now, even digital news operations, the country we love is diminished...we implore you to find that next trusted source. Use it.  Support it.  In word and in deed. 

It is the most patriotic thing you can do."

"Good night and good luck", he said, the late Edward R. Murrow's sign off.

This New York Post article has more information.

May WCBS News Radio 880 rest in peace, along with too many other journalistic sources.

From a Newspaper Draft Post in 2014

My local newspaper recently sent us (subscribers since the mid 1980's) a letter telling us about a rate increase for subscriptions effective next month. They also thanked us for supporting local journalism.

In the same week, I found out (from a local radio station's post on Facebook) that the offices for this newspaper are being vacated.  Some of this is pandemic related - people work remotely now.  But it also means it's the end of our local physical newsroom.

Somehow, this isn't a surprise.  For months now, if our local newspaper runs an article on a local problem (high rental costs, drug addiction, homelessness, you name it), the examples it gives aren't local - they are articles about places and people who live over 100 miles (160 km) from here.  My guess is, they take one article and run it in all newspapers for miles around.

Or, if they run a "fun" feature - like "local ice cream places" they give shoutouts to businesses in at least a 50 mile radius. (Yes, they actually ran a feature on local ice cream parlors earlier this spring and they did just that).  I don't know about you, but my ice cream purchased 50 miles from here would have melted long before I got home with it.

So, let's take a short trip down memory lane.

I was cleaning out my draft posts the other day and found the below.  I never published it.  Maybe it felt too "whiny" but I now realize, from what I know today, that I was looking into the future.

From a January 2014 draft post:

Recently, when I tried to put my newspaper on vacation hold to be delivered upon my return, no one seemed to pay attention.  This is not an isolated occurrence and I know other people who have had various service problems with the paper.

The other times, after they delivered the paper on the first day of the hold, I was able to reach someone by phone or chat and the paper was finally stopped.

This last time was the final straw.  I just got home from a four day trip out of town, one that was draining on a number of levels.

In preparing for the trip, I went online two days before I left (a Tuesday) and asked that the paper be stopped as of Thursday.  Thursday (I was still at home when the paper comes so I wanted to see if the paper was stopped or not due to my previous experiences in the paper not being stopped) the paper came. I had to leave soon after that, and ended up online chatting with a customer service rep later that day (I had to wait a few minutes, so I have a feeling that rep was quite busy).    The rep promised to contact someone.  OK...

When I came home, there were three papers on my porch.  That is a good way of telling a potential burglar "welcome to my house!"

I went online to find my only option at that time of day was chat. No customer service email address.  I already (from previous experience) knew I was outside of the phone customer service hours, which seem to be fewer each time I need to call them.   So I emailed the executive editor, who I realize is going to direct my email to someone else. But I wanted them to know that I, a customer of over 25 years, was ready to quit doing business with them.  It appears that is the only way I will get the newspaper to stop delivery.  I am a long distance caregiver, I must travel sometimes to give care, and I need to be able to stop the paper.  Every time I need to.  Period."

Now, back to the present.

I had no way of knowing that when I finally posted this, our paper wouldn't print on holidays, or on Saturdays.  And that our newsroom was moving to parts unknown.

I suppose we are fortunate to be subscribing to a six day a week paper - when it is delivered, that is.

Complaining about a missing paper (yes, our paper wasn't delivered - again - yesterday) almost seems nostalgic.

Sometimes I do miss the good old days.  Nostalgia.

Sometimes.

An Anniversary and a Death

Today is the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city of Hiroshima, Japan, by the United States.

August 6, 1945 was a Monday morning.  At the time, Hiroshima had a population of about 300,000.    Here is one eyewitness account.  It is not easy reading.  Those who survived suffered unimaginable mental anguish for the rest of their lives (as did many of those who fought in World War II and all other wars.)

Survivors, most of whom are in their 80's and 90's, are still dying from effects of the bomb.

Years ago, I was able to see the Enola Gay, the airplane from which the bomb had dropped.  It's in a Smithsonian museum in Virginia (one well worth the visit).  Very, very sobering.  There is a memorial each year in Hiroshima, which has been rebuilt, but due to COVID-19, it had to be scaled way back.

It is also worthy to note that a number of the killed and survivors were Korean, forced by the Japanese to work in Hiroshima.

It's estimated that 2/3 of the population of Hiroshima died as a result of the bombing.

Soon, we will commemorate the 75th anniversary of V-J Day (the ending of World War II), with hopes that eventually our human race will find a way to permanent peace. 

More eyewitness accounts of the bombing.

And yesterday....

The world of journalism mourns another great:  Pete Hamill, dead at the age of 85.

Anyone who grew up in New York City during the 50's and 60's recognizes the name immediately.

He was the voice of New York, a journalist and novelist who spent part of his life at various New York City area papers - the New York Post, New York Newsday, and the New York Daily News.

One of my childhood memories is of my Dad, leaving for work five days a week.  Before climbing the steps of our elevated subway train station, he would stop at a "sweet shop" and get his New York Daily News.  He would read it on the subway ride from our apartment in the Bronx to his job in lower Manhattan, a commute which, many times, took more than an hour. 

On the way home, he would read the New York Post, which was an afternoon paper.

Then, he'd get home and give me the newspapers.  Back then, you got much of your news from the newspaper, and newspapers provided a lot of my early reading material.  Hamill became a reporter (he didn't want to be called a "journalist") for the Post in 1960 but eventually branched out into magazine article writing, and, later, became a novelist.

Pete worked for New York newspapers (including Newsday, a Long Island paper), New York magazines, and is said to have inspired Robert F. Kennedy to run for President.  Hamill was present when Kennedy was assassinated in 1968.  It is also said that Hamill's memoir inspired Frank McCourt to finish his best selling memoir, Angela's Ashes.

He witnessed the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11.

RIP, Pete Hamill.  You will be missed.

Now the Journalists

This time, the shooting was in a newspaper office in Annapolis, Maryland. 

Editors, journalists, and a sales associate had not gone out to get the news.  The news came to them.  And, five dead  later, the survivors joined with a sister newspaper, the Baltimore Sun, to report on the news that had just happened right before them.

This shooting was a little different, though, because a close in law was visiting us, and she worked for a suburban New York City newspaper for many years.  She, through her words, had taken me into a newsroom on the morning of September 11, 2001, as she and fellow staff members gathered around a television set, watching the aftermath of a plane that rammed into One World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan, wondering if it could have been an accident.  Minutes later, as they watched (live on television) a plane hit Two World Trade Center, they had their answer.

They all scattered, journalists, editors, other support staff.  They did their jobs, as if they had been trained for this moment, and returned that night to commuter parking lots full of cars that would never be driven by their owners again.

My in law told me of the threats her paper had received after a particular story had run, not too many years before she was laid off.  She edited her social media so that people would not know she worked for that paper.  Now, her worst fear had come true - a man with a vendetta against his local paper had taken action.

I don't know what it is like to be a journalist, but I do know what it is like to be a bystander (several blocks away, and I was not a direct witness) as respects an active shooter situation - in fact, it was the topic of my very first blog post in April of 2009.  Other people did their job that day - police, medical personnel, and - yes - journalists.

Now, we need newspapers more than ever, but journalism (in this I include support staff) has become a more deadly field than ever before.

The shooting joins all the other ones - in churches, in schools, at concerts, at nightclubs, in movie theatres, at a military base, so many that we can't even remember them all any more.

The names blur.   We hold demonstrations and nothing happens.  We send our thoughts and prayers and that keeps us going until the next time.

Our President said on Thursday: "Journalists, like all Americans, should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their jobs."  The Governor of Maryland said  "There is no amount of clarity that will ever explain or nullify the pain that comes with losing so many lives for so little reason,"  in a statement Friday morning.  He went on to say that "journalism is a noble profession upon which our democracy depends, and we will fight to defend it."

But the dead are still as dead, and their families, their friends, their other loved ones, cry out to us, the American public, to do whatever it takes to make it stop.

Will we answer the call this time?

TV and The End of the World

It's the 13th of the month, two days after September 11, the grimmest day of the United States calendar.  And, oh yes, I'm one of the unlucky people hacked in the Equifax hacking event.

Should I mention North Korea?

Have you ever wondered how TV media has planned for their last broadcast?  We are so close to the brink, closer than we have been in years.  It's not a pleasant thought.

Wonder no further.  I had blogged on this topic back in 2015, back when the "end of the world" video (can't they at least improve its quality?) of CNN was leaked.

It isn't just CNN that has prepared a "treat" for its end of the world listeners. The BBC has an "end of the world" broadcast script (see end of the above video).

And John Oliver, the wonderful British comedian I love so much, has his own End of the World video, narrated by Martin Sheen.

No, it's not a funny subject, and no one (well, most people, I hope) wants to see doomsday come any time soon.  But, faced with life today, I think what we need is a good laugh.  So, perhaps CNN should rethink that grainy U.S. Army band playing Nearer My God to Thee video.

An end of the world cat video would be so much better.

And never needing that video would be the best thing of all.

Saturdat In the Park

When I was young, my Dad would leave the house every day to commute to his job in Manhattan.

He always made one stop before heading towards the "El" station where he caught his train downtown.  It was to Manny's candy store on White Plains Road in the Bronx.  Dad had Manny hold a copy of the New York Daily News newspaper for him to read on the trip to work.  He would pay Manny a week ahead of time so he wouldn't lose a minute in the tightly choreographed dance of leaving our apartment at just the right time, spending a few seconds at Manny's, and then climbing several flights of stairs to the Gun Hill Road platform where he hoped he hadn't missed his train.

(This was my elementary school. In the last second of the video, you see the train passing by the city housing project where I grew up.)

The newspaper was his link to the world.  He would usually be able to grab a seat, and he would spend the next hour reading that newspaper from cover to cover.

He never missed a day of reading his newspaper.

Now, skip forward a generation.

Newspapers? My son (mid 20's) doesn't read them at all.  I still do. But when I do, I am shocked at the errors I find.  I'm not even a professional writer, or a professional proofreader.  If I find the most obvious, how many more are there that I miss?

On Thursday, I was greeted by this headline for a local event:  "PAST tour Saturdat looks at 'Mad Men'-era homes".

At first, I thought they had declared a new, eighth day of the week.  I could use an additional day, especially if it is one where I don't have to go to my paying job.  Just imagine the possibilities...

We could have a new take on a popular song of the 1970's - Saturdat in the Park.

All those songs about Saturday night?  Time to redo them, too.

But let's be serious for a moment.  Why should I care if there is a typo in the local newspaper?

Because it HAPPENS ALL THE TIME. 

I was brought up to believe that journalism is all about accuracy.  Newspapers had an important function in our society. Doing investigative reporting. Getting "the scoop". Keeping us informed.

In our day, though, we depend on other media - media that seems to have turned news into entertainment.  It's killing the newspaper industry, so they flail around, trying to find something, anything, to cling to.  So far, the industry hasn't found its life line.


Sadly, so many people I know have given up on our local newspaper.  How can you depend on a story being accurate if a newspaper can't even properly proofread their own stories and headlines?

 Newspapers all over the country are dying, shutting their doors, laying off people who care about the written word. And meantime, they are consolidating operations.  I suspect these errors are slipping through because there's a proofreader somewhere - let's say, in Asbury Park, New Jersey, who is now doing the proofreading for umpteen newspapers where, in the past, each paper did its own.

Or, worse - maybe that story was written by a robot.


No, I'm not in the news business.  Never have been. But newspapers have been a part of my life from the moment I was born.  I wish I had something concrete to suggest.  I'm fresh out of ideas.

If my father was alive, he would be shaking his head.   He loved his morning paper so much.

Will you be sorry to see newspapers go, if they do go?  Or, do you think there is hope for them?

Civil War Sunday - POW Newspapers

On Sundays, my blog features a United States Civil War (1861-1865) feature.  I am a very amateur historian, not any kind of Civil War expert.   I like to blog from various aspects - reenactments I go to (I am not a reenactor myself), exhibits, and not commonly discussed aspects of the war and life during the 1861-1865 period.

I am a native of New York State, but have also lived in the South (Florida and Arkansas), so try to approach this subject from the point of view of both North and South.

Sandi Tuttle, an internet radio host, talked last week about Camp Ford, a prisoner-of-war (POW) camp in the state of Texas, and a newspaper its prisoners published called The Old Flag.

I did a little Internet research (Sandi, sorry, but I am probably not going to be able to help you with your mystery flag) and came up with a very interesting story of writing under less than ideal conditions.

I have blogged before about Civil War POW camps, many of which were hellholes of disease, starvation and worse.  Both sides had these camps.  On the Confederate side, Andersonville, near Americus, Georgia, is probably the best known of any of these camps.  On the Federal side, Elmira (known also as "Helmira"), in Elmira, New York (about an hour from where I live).  In comparison, conditions as Camp Ford (which held Federal prisoners) were relatively humane, with food, fresh water, and shelter available.  Prisoners were able to advertise their skills to other prisoners and even make trade with the locals.

But life, in general, was pretty boring there.  So what else to do but write up a newspaper?  And that is just what the prisoners did.  Not only that, there were two handwritten newspapers, and possibly three.

The paper Sandi talked about was The Old Flag.  The Old Flag was published irregularly in 1864 by a Union prisoner who spent 13 months at Camp Ford.  The paper featured poetry, art, satire, chess problems, (ah!  so that's how people before the Internet entertained themselves!) and local news. Advertisements for prisoners selling their skills were included. These skills included barbering, pipe making and carvers of chessmen.  The paper was passed around and read aloud in each "mess". 

Another Camp Ford newspaper was only published once:  The Camp Ford News.

I found mention of a third paper, Right Flanker, but could find no information on it.

Camp Ford was not the only Civil War POW camp where newspapers were published.  On the Northern side, Confederate POWs at Ft. Delaware, for example, published a camp newspaper called The Prison Times.

Would some of the soldiers involved have been bloggers today?

We bloggers should take inspiration from these long ago newspaper writers and publishers.

 Does anyone have an ancestor who was in a Civil War POW Camp?  Do you know of any family members who mentioned these newspapers, or was even involved as a reporter or writer?

Read All About it!

I write this post with a heavy heart, because I have subscribed to my local newspaper (no matter where I have lived) for over 35 years. 

I know the newspaper industry is in deep trouble.  (Disclaimer, I have a relative who works for a major newspaper publisher, but I did not discuss this post with her.  I may, once I post it.)  And, I realize businesses can't give away content online without a financial return.  The "free" model works for many industries - apparently it doesn't for the newspaper industry.  Ok, fine. But....


Yesterday, I received a letter from my paper.  "I'm writing to announce some energizing news!" it began.  As someone a little wise to the ways of the world (I hope) my inner voice said "Uh-oh."

Sure enough.  Our newspaper will continue to be printed (or so they say).  It will also be available "across all devices 24/7"  In other worlds I'll be able to get it on the tablet I don't own, the smart phone I don't have, plus the computer I do have, for only (unless my math is wrong) an additional $10 a month.

No choice to just be a paper subscriber. Or just an electronic subscriber.  All or nothing.

So, what happened to choice?

I would like to point out a few things:

1.  My spouse, who is the main newspaper reader in my family, does not use the computer for news.  Period. (he doesn't even use email.  It falls to me to manage his email.)
2.  My son, who is a young adult, probably has never read a paper in his life, unless forced to at school, and he doesn't read the paper on line either.   My son is far from alone, although he grew up in a household where he saw both parents buried in newspapers.  So why would he  pay $23 a month to get the newspaper delivered on his smartphone or computer?
3.  If I want news online, I don't choose my newspaper website as my first choice.  I get immediate news from Twitter.  I get internet news from a variety of sources including television websites (local and cable.)

I don't want the electronic stuff.  I don't want to pay extra for things I am not using.

I've supported my paper for years through my subscription, and this is the thanks I get for my brand loyalty.

I wonder how many of this paper's subscribers are older people, who have subscribed for years, who still read the paper paper, and wouldn't be able to read news on their phones without a magnifying glass.  Our region has a higher than average population of elderly. 

Young people don't read newspapers so they aren't going to add readership by doing this, either.

So what happens when the paper alienates their loyal readers and doesn't do anything to attract the young? 

I would love to know the logic, the research the industry has done, to support this decision.

Our paper is a Gannett paper, so I have to know this is coming down from "Corporate".

So this is my message to the Binghamton Press and Sun-Bulletin:  No wonder your industry is dying.  You have no imagination.  You punch your loyal customers in the stomach.

Am I alone in feeling this way?

Do you still read newspapers? (If you do, would you mind sharing your decade - 20's, 40's, 60's or whatever, with me? )  Is your paper doing something like this?  If not, how would you react if they did?

10 Years Ago - Happy New Year!

How time passes.

10 years ago ..... I had a 9 year old and the day off.  New Years Eve 1999.  I spent part of the day with my son and one of his friends celebrating the last day of the 20th century (although technically it wasn't).  We tracked the New Years on a globe and watched a bunch of New Years fireworks - Sydney, Australia, Egypt, London.

I don't want to ask my son if he remembers; it would probably embarrass him.  And he had a falling out with this friend early in high school.

Nothing like tracking your life through what you did with your children and when to really make you feel how quickly time passes, and how you need to treasure all the things you do with your young children.  Because one day they will have their own lives.

Now we are about to enter a new decade.  May it be a better one than this first decade of the 21st century.

Happy New Year!

A bad year for Boomer Icons-Now Cronkite on the Eve of the Moon Landing Anniversary

About 6 weeks ago, I had blogged about the rumors of the impending demise of Walter Cronkite.

Now, alas, it has come to pass that Walter Cronkite has passed on to His Next Big Assignment. Three days before the 40th anniversary of the first man stepping forth on the moon. This ending couldn't have been planned better if it was a work of fiction.

When my 19 year old son comes home from work this afternoon I don't know I will even mention it to him because I'm afraid he will ask "who?" Will there be an iconic news person of his generation in the same way?

So, what does the passing of Walter Cronkite mean to me? To me it means a Great Person is gone:
The person who told us JFK had been shot and stayed with us through three days of mourning. The man who, when he told America we were "mired" in the War in Vietnam, convinced presidents that we really should rethink what we were doing.
The man who reported the Apollo 11 moon landing. (and watched as we abandoned our space program.)
He reported during the worst days of Watergate.

They forced him to retire way too young. But even when retired, he was there to speak to us after 9/11.

He was there with his gentle, guiding voice during our best days and our worst.

His voice made you feel safe.

OK, I am going to say it. I can't help it.
"And THAT’s the way it is".

Goodbye, Walter. We will miss you.