Life Among the Dinosaurs

摘要

There are almost 1,500 daily papers in the U.S., so the gathering of publishers at this year's Newspaper Association of America annual conference--held Apr. 2-4 in Chicago--looked a lot like America. An America of local monopolists, that is: overwhelmingly white, male, late-mi ddle-affed. and Dredisoosed to wear suits on Sunday, even when traveling. They gathered to hear, once again, that the whole problem is that they are no longer monopolists. At every NAA convention, these men attend nightly parties in the host city's grandest public spaces. This year's opening event was at the magnificent Field Museum, on a large open floor bookended by two massive dinosaur skeletons. Many attendees joked about this. To the executive to whom I said such an obvious metaphor would never, ever, appear in this column: I lied.