I canceled my subscription to The Tennessean today. It wasn’t that hard (since I’m a former Banner reporter) but the sad truth is I have been a subscriber to the Tennessean, continuously, since April of 1980. I spoke to the customer service representative, who was in Fort Worth, and told her my tale of woe and she commiserated with me and said she would tell her boss and that she was sorry. Nice lady. So, after all these years, why did I cancel my subscription? Well, I had a letter shoved under the door of my downtown apartment from Tressie Minor, who purports to be the Owner/Operator of a company called Colossal Incorporated, 101 Hickory Park Lane, Antioch, TN 37013. Now, Tressie writes, “Effective Wednesday August 20, 2008 all papers will be labeled with your suite number or business name and will be available at the security / concierge desk for you to retrieve.” Oh lovely. Now, can you possibly imagine the sight at apartment buildings and condos in downtown Nashville. Early morning. All those people staggering down to the lobby in their jammies, shorts, t-shirts, soiled robes and flipflops to get their paper. Spilling coffee in the elevator. Bumping into people they’ve been avoiding. Oh the humanity.

I love newspapers. Really. I do. I get The Tennessean (or I used to) and the New York Times delivered to me every day. Oddly enough, the NYT seems to be willing to ride the elevator up and deliver my paper right to my door each day. In my line of work, it is not unusual for me to sample the websites of 10 or 15 newspapers a day. And, when traveling, I may read another two or three papers depending on my location. But in the morning I love that first cup of coffee and the feel of a newspaper in my hands. I guess I always will. I also love to read Beverly Keel who, in my view, is now the heart and soul of The Tennessean. And, I read Joe Biddle, who is still holding down his sports shift. They are former Banner scribes, like myself, who write with a passion and clarity that is often missing in the rest of the paper. In addition to their columns, you will notice that they break a lot of stories because people know they are fair dealers and great reporters who will get it right the first time. Not a small thing these days. But, alas, those days are gone. I shall now have to content myself with the online version where I will meticulously ignore all of the cheap and gaudy banner advertising to read Beverly and Joe and scan the headlines. So, Tressie, nice job. You managed to do what a whole string of editors and reporters couldn’t do. You severed my relationship with 1100 Broadway. I am sure the corporate behemoth’s won’t ever hear of my plight or of the sad end of this 28-year relationship. That’s the way it goes in post-newspaper America. Every day, somebody gets their heart broken. Today was my day.

A lovely woman just called me from The Tennessean. She was positively aghast that one of their delivery services had made the decision not to continue delivery to the door of downtown apartments and condos. She was apologetic, gracious and reassuring. She said they would continue to cut down trees, make newspapers and deliver them right to my door. I thanked her, reinstated my subscription and alerted the authorities. I’m glad I won’t have to go searching the internet for Doonesbury, Get Fuzzy, Zits and Arlo and Janis. As I stated in my earlier missive, this morning I canceled my Tennessean subscription after 28 continuous years of being a subscriber. Now, we’re back together. I marvel at the power of the Internet. One lone voice raised in the blogosphere and the powers that be were driven to meet and make the tough decisions. Freedom preserved. Privacy protected. I think the time apart did us some good. I needed my space. Thank God that I didn’t develop a relationship with another paper during this rocky period. I had already invested in some nice silk pajamas with donkeys on them but I might still be able to put those to good use. In time, our wounds will heal. As Hemingway said, “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are stronger at the broken places.”

“The right to a free and open press though comes with a responsibility, and from my experience over the past year, that responsibility is not being lived up to,” Briley (D-Nashville) said from the main House podium. “We used to talk about the politics of personal destruction. Well that’s no longer what’s going on. It’s the publishing of personal destruction, and we owe it to ourselves to do better than that. We owe it to the rest of our society to do better than that.” ....Briley said that government needs to be “as open as possible.” “But the press needs to understand that if they’re not responsible with that information, that they’re not going to have access to it anymore,” Briley said. In addition to the mainstream press, Briley criticized bloggers, remarking that “just because you say it, doesn’t make it true.”