You can probably guess the answer.
I watched a news report last night about the return of Kailua newspaper vendor George Ligman, who was hit by a truck last month while selling papers near Castle Medical Center.
There has been quite a lot of news coverage about the accident, a Google search shows.
But the coverage hasn’t raised the hard questions. Most important, under the circumstances: Did George have health insurance through his employer?
The only mention I’ve seen of the issue was on Burl Burlingame’s blog, Honolulu Agonizer, last month.
As an “independent contractor,” George is responsible for his own medical coverage. OK, so George wasn’t on our payroll. But for thousands of Windward readers, he was the only face the Star-Advertiser had.
How about directing some of the reporting toward a hard look at the low-paying jobs that get newspapers into our hands every day. How many street vendors are there? Average earnings? Hours? I noticed one Craigslist ad for a newspaper delivery job that required use of the applicants’ own cars and insurance. Are there other requirements that further burden already low-paid workers to the benefit of newspaper readers?
I also noted the story of a similar accident involving a vendor for the Winston-Salem Journal. The story did quote the newspaper’s president explaining that the vendor was considered an “independent contractor” and not covered as a newspaper employee.
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The real question might be whether there will be newspaper vendors in the future. Most people who are not yet retired read the online version. In fact, in our neighborhood there are a number of retirees, one of whom passes away every year or two. The newspaper deliverers used to pass slowly through the neighbor years ago, hitting almost every home. Now they just hit a couple of places and zip through on their mopeds; the recession really seemed to accelerate this process. What will happen to these deliverers and vendors when the delivery and vending jobs no longer exist? Most of the deliverers I’ve seen are young Native Hawaiians or immigrants. What are they going to turn to as an alternative job? The black market? Also, what is the Canadian publisher who owns the paper going to do in years to come? The idea of monopolizing an island newspaper market must have been irresistible at one time, but he did not seem to notice the Internet. In fact, most educated people in Hawaii who do stay informed spend as much time or even more time reading Civil Beat, and there is a lot of disgust at the mercenary quality of the Star Advertiser, whether real or perceived or some mixture. (If you think Rob Perez is compromised, read the steady stream of seemingly pro-rail and pro-real estate articles by Andrew Gomes, in which only a couple of people are interviewed, and they are industry leaders, insiders and spokesmen.) Perhaps in the future there will be no vendors and more journalists will go into public relations, then become government spokespersons, and later become local politicians.
Well, I for one love to read both the online (breaking news) and the printed newspaper (S-A). There are more articles in the latter that never make it online.
Hope George qualifies for Medicaid.
100% ditto with Ben C. it’s a rapidly aging market and there is no fountain of youth for publishing news on paper.
Because my computer and its software systems are old (2003) and unreliable (need to reboot every four hours of use) and slow to download even with RoadRunner, I stopped reading on-line publications on a regular basis several months ago and went back to reading “real” papers.
Just reading the Star-Advertiser took me over two hours a day six months ago; now it takes less than 45 minutes Monday through Saturday. Reading a (real) paper means I don’t have to put up with slow-w-w-w-w-w downloads & flashing ads – plus I can sit at the dining room table and eat & read at the same time without worrying about knocking over my coffee mug.
As for other on-line editions, I drop by the library or the Capitol’s Public Access Room once or twice a week to read Civil Beat and other newspapers.
One of these days before I shuff off this mortal coil I may have enough $$$ to update my computer system, but for now I’m going to be reading (real) papers and occasionally reading/posting on blogs like this one.
Age has nothing to do with it – it’s lack of money
to pay for hardware, software & training.
CWD,
I am sympathetic to the problems of aging Mac hardware on today’s internet. The biggest obstacle in the evolving technological requirements would be leaving behind a PPC chip Mac in favor of a Mac running on an Intel chip.
(Note: I am still PPC based myself).
But I updated my mother’s Mac by finding a reasonably powerful G4 Mac on Craigslist for $250. Like other PPC Macs, it has trouble with streaming video, but manages everything else pretty handily. If you monitor Craigslist closely and are able to move quickly, you can get very good deals.
OTOH, you may be able to get enough of a bump in power by increasing the amount of RAM in your current computer. Heck, I might even have some old RAM sitting around I could give you for free.
Send me a private email, or call me, and we can talk about your current computer and what might work. All I ask in return is that all your online comments agree with me for the next 6 months!
No, that’s unreasonable. 3 months!
I find it odd that we can get newspaper delivery service at our house if we wanted… but we can’t get the US Mail delivered here.
I wonder how much gas money is spent out of pocket for delivery folks here on the Big Island… especially when the prices of gas go up… yet the commission they get off those newspapers stays the same.