And now for something completely different: Have you ever heard of Althea Cole, a supposed columnist for a mid-sized Midwestern daily newspaper? Her columns are ridiculously verbose and prolix. I wrote a letter about these overly long columns of an elementary-level, knee jerk conservatism. Here's the text of the submitted message: "When I read Althea Cole's columns I'm reminded of a letter written by Voltaire to a friend. He wrote that he was so sorry the letter was so long. He didn't have time to write a short one."
My letter to the editor was ignored. Is this why newspapers are failing across the country? Their product is mediocre and unresponsive to readers, causing them to go to social media.