Column: More Thank You’s for all! by George Fiala

Last month I thanked our advertisers who are an important part in keeping this paper going. Not simply financially, but in the fact that there are people in the community who still believe that a local publication, a printed one no less, is important enough to put their money behind it.

As a society, we are spending more and more time  on our cellphones. Here is something from a statistics webpage: The average time spent daily on a phone, not counting talking on the phone, has increased in recent years, reaching a total of 4 hours and 30 minutes as of April 2022. This figure is expected to reach around 4 hours and 39 minutes by 2024.

Understand that if you go back 25 years or more, that statistic has risen from zero. Now further understand that I began working in community newspapers here about 45 years ago. In those days, our competition was basically OTHER NEWSPAPERS! I worked for a paper that called itself “The Newspapers for Brownstone Brooklyn.” Our circulation, which consisted of people who actually paid for a weekly subscription, was concentrated in Brooklyn Heights, Boerum Hill, Park Slope, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, and perhaps a few people in Red Hook.

Our competition included the Carroll Garden/Cobble Hill Courier, the Park Slope Paper, The Brooklyn Paper, The Prospect Press, The Brooklyn Heights Press and Cobble Hill News, as well as local advertising magazines such as the Park Slope Shopper.

These were all weekly publications, full of local ads, stories, letters to the editor, and columns and editorials. When election time came, all the papers were thick with political ads.

Today many of those ads are either free or paid on places like Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok. These are all media where content is created by the user, generally not journalists.

Those old newspapers were a breeding ground for writing careers. As I wrote here after my old boss at the the local paper I worked for in the 1980’s passed away: “Graduates of the Phoenix include Pulitzer Prize winners, reporters and editors for the NY Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Business Week, New York Magazine; authors of major best sellers and major motion pictures, and contributors to publications such as the NY Review of Books and Esquire. Others have gone on to successful careers in politics, business and the non-profit world.”

One of my jobs back then was to go to the post office on Atlantic Avenue and wait in line to pick up our mail. Pretty much every day I brought back a bulging sack of mail, full of press releases and checks from subscribers and advertisers. We had to use an intern whose main job was to open up all that mail and sort it into news, arts, sports and business.

The difference today is that everyone—businesses, non-profits, politicians, schools—does most of their public relations online directed to the people already indicating that they are interested. It’s not that often that PR is directed to actual media outlets anymore. But when they are, they often work.

Last month we ran a story about the Tipsy Grape Wine Bar on Court Street. The only reason that story ended up in the paper is because the owners emailed us press releases and invitations, and followed up. I had never heard of them before, but it turned out they had an interesting story to tell.

There’s a famous watering hole here in Red Hook that’s closing after 15 years. I and their other followers found out from their note on Instagram. You probably already know more about it than I do.

I am thankful for readers like you. You are still interesting in seeing what’s going on in the world around you, not just your self-curated world. You take the risk of finding out about things that may make you uncomfortable.

One example was a story we ran about the David Prize. To most it seems like a wondeful charity, awarding grants to deserving individuals. Relatively few knew that the “prize” is named after and run by a rapacious real estate developer looking to burnish his legacy as well as continuing his family business which has radically changed the Brooklyn skyline. Many readers told me that they had no idea. who was actually behind the prize.

To me, looking at a newspaper is an adventure. You never know what’s going to be on the next page. It’s maybe a little more daring than your social network feed in that there may be something that you didn’t realize you wanted to know.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with social networks. I’m always looking there as well. But as I mention, it’s a self curated source of information. You follow only your interests. Just like picking the kind of news you follow on TV. By being either an MSNBC or a Fox News watcher, you can avoid news that might bother you.

A few weeks ago I went to the Red Hook Initiative where the Borough President announced new funding for all tenant associations of NYCHA developments. I got to talk to ask a couple of the presidents what their concerns were, and they all mentioned engagement. It’s tough to get people to participate, whether it’s voting or coming to meetings, or events.

From what I see, this is a growing problem. It seems to get harder and harder to get people to actually show up for public and community meetings. Perhaps as the smartphone becomes more and more a medium of communication and action, physical things like showing up at a meeting or reading an actual newspaper are seen as inconvenient.

So I’m very grateful to you for actually picking this newspaper up and reading it. I’m grateful to my writers, who fill the pages with facts and adventure.

I’m grateful to our printer, Trumbull Printing, in Connecticut for staying in business. Believe it or not, it’s not just newspaper deserts that are becoming a problem, but now there are printer deserts as well. Some upstate papers now have to go to Vermont to get their papers printed.

Finally, while I’m not a big believer in any sort of Divinity (except perhaps for Dwight Gooden), I’m thankful for yule logs, minced meat, brisket, Byriani, and all of the cultural holiday affectations that help make life so wonderful (and tasty!)

Happy Holidays
dear reader!!!