In the Year 2015
It’s hard to chuckle about anything relating to the state of print journalism in Southern California, a disaster zone devastatingly summarized recently by former Los Angeles Times staff writer Scott Timberg on his blog The Misread City. Two years after being Zell-ed, Timberg thinks his 16-year-old car will soon conk out and that it’s likely by year’s end that he and his family will have left the no longer Golden State.
Still, SanDiego.com Editor-in-Chief Ron Donoho‘s very funny fictitious essay 2015 San Diego Press Club Awards Announced, re-posted this morning on his hometown site, deserves kudos for its ability to elicit a smile or two. The piece is being shared in the wake of snagging one of seven “Best in Show” awards at last night’s San Diego Press Club Awards.
The crux of the what-if essay by Donoho (pictured) is a keynote address by blowhard columnist Dirk Smillie, whose 2009 predictions have for the most part come true. “Everyone thought citizen-journalists would be the death of serious reporting,” he crows. “Look at how the ability for online readers to comment on articles has separated the wheat from the chaff, though. If you want to be taken seriously online, you get your facts right, or you will be flamed into obscurity.”
In the future as envisioned by Donoho, Press Club Awards for print and web have been “separated because of domination by websites.” Meanwhile, in the here and (diminished) now, there are at press time no comments to the humorous essay. But soon, no doubt, SanDiego.com readers will be chiming in with their thoughts on where this ranks on the wheat-chaff scale.
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