Journal Sentinel Dumps Doonesbury, Readers

This morning brings us the new, thinner Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Apparently, the J-S has decided to continue the self-fulfilling prophesy of dead-tree decline by making itself even less essential to our need for information. The paper wants us to read more by making itself less irrelevant.

From a news perspective, the biggest change is in the second section. The former Metro section (in Milwaukee, anyway) is now titled Local. The J-S apparently has eliminated the targeted editions for various parts of the state and will try to cover all local stories in the state in two or three short pages of content (minus obituaries). "This move is an important step that recognizes a simple truth: We are all part of one local community," writes Editor Martin Kaiser in a Dear John letter to the jilted readership on page one today. Oh, there’s a simple truth, alright – the "zoned geographic editions" were just too expensive to continue. Why not just say that rather than pretend you are doing us a favor?

The fact is that our local paper has now officially abandoned its focus on the Milwaukee area. It has done to itself what it did to the various community newspapers it ate up and spit out into the pathetic Now tabloids – blended and pureed the important facts of our world into a jumble of irrelevancies. Strangely, Kaiser directs those starved for local news to the Now papers and websites, which is like sending a hungry child to the hardware store. The Journal Company that spent tons of money and expended a lot of what was left of its community goodwill in the ‘90s by gobbling up and destroying dozens of vital independent local newspapers now offers the bland results as a substitute for the abandoned content of the parent paper. What a joke.

Some of the pain of the ill-considered changes the Journal Sentinel has made this year might be easier to take if the paper was doing more with the less it has created for itself. For instance, Stuart Carlson’s unfortunate demise is felt the most of all the recently departed J-S writers, leaving a surprising hole in the soul of the newspaper. Now, there is no way local or even state politicians can be lampooned in the way only a local cartoonist can.

But, if you are going to become a second-class newspaper by forcing out your editorial cartoonist, you might want to bring in some of the better syndicated cartoonists, such as Tom Toles the Washington Post or maybe the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Jim Borgman. But no. Instead we are seeing far too much of the repulsive right-wing nut, Michael Ramirez. Ramirez, who the defensive wing-nuts will tell you somehow managed a Pulitzer Prize for his undistinguished and unoriginal body of work, has a ham-fisted way of illustrating right-wing talking points, such as his recent drawing of a hurricane with the phrase "Tax & Spending" imposed over the clouds and the caption "Hurricane Obama". Clever insight, no? Er, no. Ramirez appears to be alternating with Chip Bok, a middle-of-the-roader with no discernable genius.

But, if you are talking about cartoon metaphors for the accelerating decline of the Journal Sentinel, there is nothing sadder than dropping Doonesbury. Ever since it started running in the old Journal Green Sheet way back in the ‘70s, the newspaper has never done right by Garry Trudeau and his strip. They never ran it according to Trudeau’s size specs so the art looks right. Then they caved in to right-wing pressure and moved it to the op-ed page. In recent years, they have run it next to the putrid Mallard Fillmore, a ridiculously unfunny right-wing strip, implying a creative and moral equivalence that exists only in the twisted heads of the clueless J-S editors. Now – starting today – Doonesbury is gone, even from the Sunday comics, squeezed out by the apparent elimination of the op-ed page on Saturday and Monday.

Doonesbury is the greatest comic strip in the history of publishing (challenged only by Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes and Bloom County). The development of the characters over time has been incredibly deep and believable, as they grew from carefree college students to late middle-aged adults. Most interesting has been B.D., who started as a hard-core right-wing quarterback trying to keep stoned Zonker on track in the huddle and now struggles with PTSD after being hit by an IED in Iraq. Trudeau has taken the daily strip and turned it into a living work of art with heart and brains. His political points still get made – from Mark Slackmeyer’s "guilty, guilty, guilty!" during Watergate to his deserved jabs at Bush and Cheney – but it always comes from a world we recognize and characters that we know.

The Journal Sentinel should be honored to be a home for Doonesbury, rather than treating it like so much surplus For Better or Worse. It's one thing for the J-S to be battered by economic info-market realities; it is quite another for them to be the victim of their own bad choices.