I want to take you on an odd train of thought, so stick with me. I get mythological as things go on, but what follows is a true story. Names have been changed to protect nobody.
I recently covered a meeting where someone in the audience opined “But no one reads the paper anymore!” When reporting on news of Pierce County, I try to keep myself neutral and unbiased. I'm there to observe and record, not get involved, but my expression must have changed in some way, because I noticed someone looking my way as they suppressed a laugh. At the very least my eyebrows went up and the corner of my mouth had twitched.
The comment was the tail end of a statement implying policies and decisions slip by local citizens because things are purposefully kept quiet, as if our local government is a work of piecemeal subterfuge; keeping things spread out so the big picture is obscured, no one drawing attention to what goes on, no one putting it all together until things are too late— and just maybe it is in the paper, “but nobody reads the paper anymore!”
