Steve Smith laments the passing of an era

In his blog "News is a Conversation" on the Spokesman-Review Web site, Steve Smith, editor of the SR, writes of the lost days of the "newspaperman."

Even as he has fought to keep ahead of the curve and maintain relevance in a fast advancing world, Smith recalls the dirty, smoke-filled past of the newspaper with relish and longing. He must have been in such a melancholy mood.

Before starting my internship, Smith, an alum from my college paper took several leaders of the Oregon Daily Emerald to dinner to discuss the industry, the future and the past. Many of the stories he told during that dinner surface in this blog post. Perhaps it's best that newspapermen and women are no longer drunks and that newsrooms are no longer the chaotic messes of ashtrays and finger-staining ink they used to be.

I guess I didn't grow up in that era, and I don't long for those crusty old editors who hardly seem human. Hell, I've met plenty a crusty editor I was glad I didn't work for, they refuse to move into the neat and tidy future.

Not to say that newspapering is either neat or tidy. It's messy, especially when you find out about something other people would prefer you don't know about. It's not easy; if it were, then everyone would do it, and do it well. Gone are the brash jokes, sure, but also gone are the sexist comments. A woman can be just as tough as man when it comes to digging out a story.

Perhaps Smith is right that the daily newspaper as we have know it will become something for the elites rather than the regular Joes. That's the fight we must keep trying to win, if you ask me. How does the daily newspaper remain important to it's citizens? Ah, the oft asked and discussed question, the answer to which is elusive and unpredictable.

Smith offers us no bright spot, no sage wisdom to grasp. He instead says democracy will find another stage. The fourth estate will be lost to some other realm. What then will the schools teach us our purpose is?