The problem with the world today is communication… too much communication.
Homer Simpson
Early on Friday afternoon, November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy died in Dallas, Texas.
By the time most St. Louisans headed home from work an EXTRA edition of the St. Louis Post -Dispatch was available from street corner vendors and at thousands of retail locations. Back then the Post’s Bulldog edition hits the street about 10:00 a.m. (roughly three hours after the last edition of that day’s St. Louis Globe Democrat) , followed by an early afternoon paper delivered to homes, thence a late edition which included the day’s final Wall Street numbers. All this happened before computers and offset printing. Slugs of metal type arranged in perfect order on dozens of pages, the work of hundreds of people writing, printing and delivering each edition.
Starting next month, if an EXTRA worthy event happened on a Sunday St. Louisans wouldn’t see it in the Post until Tuesday.
As reported by St. Louis Public Radio [ https://www.stlpr.org/economy-business/2025-10-03/st-louis-post-dispatch-ends-monday-paper-subscriptions-plummetand ] and other media, the Post will stop publishing a Monday edition starting in November.
Why should it matter if NFL game summaries, the weekend crime reports and national news miss a day? Afterall, as reported, the Post’s daily circulation fell by 91% from 281,461 in 2005 to 24,263 last year. Paying readers have already made their displeasure known.
And the paper no longer even gets printed in St. Louis. The current printer is in Peoria, Illinois. On a good day that’s three and a half hours away, meaning deadlines for the first draft of history hit in mid-afternoon for the next morning’s paper.
Yeah, it matters.
Even today’s ridiculously abbreviated Post-Dispatch contains a word count orders of magnitude higher than the longest TV newscasts. While we have more hours of TV news now, well, most is designed to be consumed in small chunks. The main stories – along with weather and sports – get repeated time and again. The actual number of stories covered and the word count remains trifling. They often present what they do well, they just only have time to float across the surface.
Community free papers cover segments of the region. Yet they lack the resources (and the nerve) to attack political corruption, expose government failures and delve into area-wide issues – things independent daily newspapers like the Post (and Globe) did well.
True, most people now learn what they want to believe from internet and social media sources. As Homer laments, today there is too much communication. Yup, too much communication but very little reliable information.
Yet, there is a need for accurate and detailed information readily available to the many.
A quick example: James Comey plead Not Guilty today to charges that he lied to Congress five years ago. The traditional electronic media noted the very obvious machinations by Donald Trump to get Comey charged. The same three minutes of information gets played and replayed and replayed again.
Overlooked is Comey’s inaction and distractions aimed at hurting Hillary Clinton in her 2016 presidential campaign, and, a significant number of actions he took for political rather than law enforcement reasons as head of the FBI. Yes, he’s being persecuted. No, he was never a saint nor an impartial bureaucrat.
Unfortunately, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch fell off its tipping point. Even new ownership and an investment of staff and other resources can’t restore it to its glory days. Yes, most daily newspapers struggle. They still have a role to play, a role the St. Louis region needs but no longer gets.
Now I have to face stupid reality.
Homer Simpson
Glenn Koenen