Since I’m not road-tripping this holiday weekend, what say we do a bit of time-traveling?
Shortly after I joined The New Mexican in 1988, publisher Robert McKinney reclaimed that paper from the soulless zopilotes at Gannett. He’d sold it to them in 1976 on the condition that he would retain editorial and managerial control, but just two years later took them to court, alleging breach of contract.
It took a while, but McKinney beat them like a chicken-thieving mutt, returned as publisher in 1987, and in ’89 reacquired the paper he’d first bought in 1949 for a cool half-mil’, but this time paying a slightly higher price: “his remaining Gannett stock, then worth about $33 million,” according to The New York Times.
Today The New Mex remains one of the rarest of birds — a locally owned newspaper. McKinney’s daughter, Robin McKinney Martin, is the big boss.
And once again a McKinney is getting set to throw some hands with Gannett — this time, down south, where those bandidos own and operate the Las Cruces Sun News.
Now, I’ve not read that paper in ages. I do look at its website now and again, and every time I wonder why in hell I bothered.
This is what the American daily newspaper looks like in The Year of Our Lard 2026: the journalistic equivalent of the walking dead. A zombie, full of canned “news” from elsewhere, edited and printed out of town, far from its readership, if any. Check the “contact us” page: Just three staffers listed there — a news director, a news reporter, and a sports reporter.
Now check the contact page at The New Mex.
One name you won’t see there is Julia Gentin. She’ll be joining The New Mex in July to work in Doña Ana County — home of the Sun News — as the Santa Fe paper’s first bureau journalist for southern New Mexico.
“Yes, we’re growing our newsroom and expanding our coverage area,” writes executive editor Bill Church.
It’s an ambitious project, and I’ll be interested to see how it shakes out. Santa Fe and Las Cruces are very different places, and The New Mex is not the acme of perfection. Neither is the Albuquerque Journal, likewise locally owned. No newspaper is.
And speaking of zombies, I wonder whether McKinney — who died in 2001 — might be suiting up for the battle from The Beyond.
Some Gannett drone once called him an “old coot” in a memo. Which was accurate. But I don’t think he liked it.
Mad Blog Media 
When we first moved into Wrinklehaven, just over 10 years ago, the newspaper lady was busy on her route a couple of hours every morning. The was the local newspaper, The Herald Review, along with the Arizona Daily Star out of Tucson. Plus the once a week advertiser paper. She has been gone for years. Only one person on our street gets the Herald delivered now. The online newspaper works for a non-profit outfit, The Tucson Sentinel. Not sure how a for profit newspaper can support itself only online.
Wrinklehaven. Hee, and also haw.
I don’t know how any publication makes money in an age when Information Wants to Be Free (But Real Estate, Utilities, and Employees Do Not).
Some papers cut their print editions down from seven per week to six, or even less. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution abandoned print entirely and is an online-only paper. Others sell their monumental buildings with all that arcane and famously troublesome machinery, farm out their printing to some other outfit (as the Journal here does), and downsize to strip-mall offices (my former employer the Gazette in B-burg is now based in a downtown bank that I used to swamp out as a janitor).
Shedding real estate and employees is a big money-saver, especially for the victims of chains like Gannett who can and will fill your “local” paper with ice-cold turds gleaned from one or more of the other dogs in its kennel. Just filling the holes around the ads, if any.
It’s too bad. When I was rocketing around from coast to coast Back in the Day® I loved sitting down in some greasy spoon and thumbing through the local blat, finding out who was doing what to whom, and why. When I worked at The Arizona Daily Star in Tucson it was possible to lay your hands on print copies of it, the Tucson Citizen, The Arizona Republic, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, even The Denver Post, which once was a strong regional paper in flyover country.
No mas, no mas. The Bots are coming for print, same as they did for radio. And don’t get me started about online. The A.I. bushwa that WordPress is dumping on us makes me want to croak the blog and start a ’zine. But the USPS is headed for the tarpits now and I can’t afford the gas to deliver everyone’s personal copy.
We subscribe to both the Albuquerque Journal and the Fanta Se New Mex. That balances out the editorial biases of each paper a bit.
The Journal is an awful piece of shit. I dunno what all the staffers listed in that masthead are doing to while away the lonely hours. I didn’t think it could be done, but somehow they managed to make the website even worse than it was before its most recent “update.” Lots of sports, handjobs for the bidness community, “branded content” (ads thinly disguised as news), and wire copy.
And they just raised the cost of an online subscription. It’s now twice the price of the NYT, which is another kettle of smelly fish altogether.
I sure do miss sitting down to read a real newspaper. There is no comparison now to how a person obtained information in the past. But I’m not an evolver. I like things the way they were and although I’m a student of improving efficiency, I can understand and appreciate it, but I really don’t want it. Please allow me my 8 speed drivetrains (wider = longer lasting chains), my rim brakes (disc brakes are for people that are afraid or want to ride a non-motorized motocross bike down a hill), my not-smart cell phones (what’s the point of being alive if you can’t get lost?), manual car & truck transmissions (because they really are better in the snow and ice), etc, etc (a long list).
Oh yeah. About that newspaper thing. Perhaps one of the reasons I storm through the swinging doors of this cantina is because I feel for what you once did. I’m one of those that really appreciated, and appreciate now, the time that you put into a story. I hope that your interest in allowing us to here your screams may continue – even if we can’t Report a comment.
But alas, it is now a Day of Memorial. Here’s to wishing all those who visit here a fine day of respectful Flag bearing and remembering those that really had a clue to what this country is all about.
Och, thim was the days, eh, Shawn me bucko? I can’t remember the last time I sat down with a cup of joe and thumbed through an analog newspaper. It’s all digital now — I start my day with the Albuquerque Journal and The New Mexican, proceed to The New York Times, The Associated Press, and The Guardian, and then wander around and about to see if any local papers have more salient detail on developments in their circulation areas.
This often takes more than one cup of coffee.
Today I’ll be riding the Nobilette. It’s one of them consarned doggone newfangled whatchamacallits, with its fancy-schmancy nine-speed indexed shifting (bar-cons) and Paul’s cantilever brakes. But yesterday it was the Rivendell Sam Hillborne, also a nine-speed, but with friction shifters, threaded headset and quill stem, and long-reach sidepulls.
And yep, it’s Memorial Day. The old man’s flag is in the window, and a remembrance of another veteran — my brother-in-law Bill White — is on the blog. Peace to both of them, and to all who served.
Folks that don’t like disc brakes on bikes myst live in the flatlands where it never rains. Disc brakes don’t fade on long descents, work fine in the rain, and give you more braking power with better feel. Tubeless bike tires? Nah. Disc brakes on road and mountain bikes? Hell yea! TRP mechanical two piston brakes to be precise.
Oh I’m not so down on disc brakes. I’m just one who doesn’t go through the time and cost of upgrading unless I have to. My next new bike will have disc brakes. Of course most all new bike have disc brakes.
Regarding braking though, and as I likely mentioned the story here before, an old rally driver (Stig Blomqvist) out of Sweden made a notable response in an article many years ago. The question to him was something along the lines of why he was so fast, and his answer was “because he doesn’t use the brakes”. I believe Stig can still drive pretty fast. So when I think about braking, I think about not braking so much.