Ode to a Newspaper

Long live the Free Press!
​Zach Hively

You don’t need me to tell you that printed newspapers are, if not a dying industry, at least a much-reduced one. I mean, if cassette tapes are making a comeback, there’s some hope for newsprint yet. And of course there’s digital news. But actual newspapers—the kind that smudge your fingers black, the kind you can rest your cereal bowl on, the kind you start your fires with—they’re an endangered species.

Which really, really sucks.

That said, some of the best of what remains are what we loosely call “alternative newspapers.” The ones who look at what social media did to the news cycle (hint: waiting for tomorrow morning is too long) and said, “Oh, yeah? What if we make you wait AN ENTIRE WEEK?”

These papers (even if they’re online) are my bread and butter. Maybe because they understand the value of taking time to think about what you write before you publish it? Maybe because they’re desperate for content? Nobody knows. But my Fool’s Gold column (and so many other, more brilliant, columns) exists because of venues like the Abiquiú News and the Durango Telegraph.

And, until earlier this year, the Four Corners Free Press, who said: “I’ll see your once a week and raise you to ONCE A MONTH.”

The Free Press and its editor, Gail Binkly, took a chance on me back oh roundabout 2014, give or take, when yours truly was but a fledgling columnist with a part-time job processing business licenses and parking tickets. (Oh, the things people will write on their checks for parking fines; this might be a story for another day.)

Ten years in, and I rewarded their kindness by pushing my monthly deadline later and later and later. Is this what ultimately killed the Free Press? The world may never know, because Gail is too polite to say so.

But in celebration of all the Free Press stood for—actual long-form journalism, diverse opinions, and a ridiculous wealth of columnists, but most especially two entire spreads of tastefully annotated crime notes recounting just how many people had been banned from Walmart that month—some friends of the newspaper put together a party for Gail and crew. They assembled a booklet of farewells from those of us fortunate enough to see our names on the paper’s contributors list.

This was my contribution, which they mistakenly included in the final cut.

Ode to a NewspaperWhen you really stop to think about it, “expression” is such a strange word. We use it to mean “share our thoughts through writing, or interpretive dance, or inchoate screaming,” but really it means “to take what is inside of us and put it outside of us.” This can mean articulating our emotions. It can also mean relieving the pressure on our dogs’ anal glands.

Using the full spectrum of the term, I cannot truly express—at least not in words—what it means to have been published by Gail Binkly and the Four Corners Free Press a dozen, sometimes even ten, times a year, every year, for the past decade.

For starters, the fact that it took me so long to drive the Free Press into the ground is a testament to the resilience and delusion of the editorial staff. My Fool’s Gold column has buried at least two other independent news organizations, both within single-digit years, and neither of them even had print costs.

But more than that, Gail and the Free Press stood for integrity. Which is why it’s so incredible they kept nominating my column for legitimate journalism awards, as evidenced by my actually winning some of them. This has yet to turn into wealth or glamorous invites. But for this, I forgive everyone involved.

Here’s something heartfelt I can express, though, without the use of paper towels or latex gloves: The crime notes always made me feel better about myself.

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