Memphis without Grit & Grind is Just Warsaw,Indiana on a Saturday night

Think of Memphis for decades throwing  heart & soul, energy, money, and kitchen sinks into drives to land a professional football team.  If you are of certain age, this recollection brings about as much angst to mind as the Cold War. We worked to put our city on a map populated by a few special other cities.  It was about our pride, our identity, our self esteem.  If you are too  young to remember this football chasing, then just try to imagine Memphis now without the Grizzlies. Ouch.  The Grizz, the Grit & Grind, the unifying force pulling  young & old, black & white, suburban & urban together.  Grizz vs . Errrybody. Now think of Memphis with the Orpheum, without the Levitt Shell, without the MIM BBQ contest. What you are left with is something resembling  Warsaw, IN  (the # 1 city in America for medical devices, Memphis is #2  but our night life is waaaay better).

Memphis without a daily newspaper is about on the same par as Memphis without the Grizzlies.  No daily makes Memphis a bush league city, no ifs ands or buts.

Clearly Gannett is doing some sort of wicked vivisection on the Commercial Appeal. Why? Because the business model is antiquated, because more people get their news from Twitter or Colbert or not at all. Because YOU do not subscribe to the paper (do you? Tell me if I’m wrong. I’m guessing that of my 3,500 Facebook friends about three of the under the age of 40 might subscribe and three might be too high a guess).

But I am not writing to chastise anyone (other than Gannett) but simply to say this: yeah, it stinks that the CA is laying off good people and good friends, but you don’t get revenge by disowning the paper and cancelling your subscription (speaking to my over age 50 friends now). That only expedites our journey toward becoming Warsaw , IN.

There is likely more to come – selling the Union building, printing in Jackson or Nashville,  a four day per week paper  instead of a seven day, and who knows what else. But we need a Commercial Appeal in  some form or fashion. Thank heaven we have the Flyer, Daily News, and MBJ, but we still need a CA.