Poor magazines and newspapers! Circulation plummeting, the internet providing a million times the benefit at a fraction of the cost, unread copies stacked to warehouse ceilings. And jobs on the line. . . .

House and Garden magazine held out for about 10 years, supported by Conde Nast. Good for them. They’ve soldiered on with Vanity Fair and The New Yorker and supported great editors and writers over the years. Dominique Browning is one. Her editorials were truly sparkling. I hope she and her staff land on their feet. However, America isn’t Europe, no matter how hard it tries. Glossy mags filled with fancy imported designer furniture are a dime a dozen. Plus, the “value culture” has trickled up. Sam’s Club is running local holiday gourmet cooking classes, and some are already sold out.

Here in Philadelphia and also nearby New York City, the newspapers’ sports sections are filled with “blog updates”, or what are, I guess, exclusive stories sold to the papers from peoples’ blogs. One can only ponder how folks came up with such a weird scheme. No one is going to subordinate the blog to the newspaper, unless the paper’s columnist is a magician. It is odd to see a “blog” reprinted in a newspaper.

In addition to length of time, the other disadvantage of the print media is ink. In the johns here at work, there used to be jumbled stacks of sports sections, complete with used car ads, left atop the tanks in the stalls. Now, there are neat little 8 ½ X 11 printouts of online sports articles, looking like office memoranda. Not a single newspaper anywhere. Even The Wall Street Journal has disappeared from hotel lobbies.

In the elite horticulture world lately, as the proprietor of Heronswood, I have been the ghost of Christmas future, the shadow of death. Garden writers and lifestyle editors across the nation have either been let go or offered early retirement. Most have gone on the breadline that is euphemistically called “free lance”. Moreover, the pace is accelerating. Last spring, the Seattle newspaper folks sat down to talk to me, a businessman who had to make a difficult decision, and they were understandably apprehensive, not only because I made an unpopular choice, but also because I reminded them of their likely fate. (But I’m sure their bosses haven’t lost as much money as I did.) Here comes the World Wide Web, finally! AOL, Google, Yahoo, Craigslist—not to mention their advertisers’ own websites.

On the east coast, excellent garden writers have been terminated from regular employment at their home base newspapers. Two examples are the award-winning Carol Stocker at The Boston Globe and the fabulous Denise Cowie at The Philadelphia Inquirer. They continue to write occasional articles, but the sunny regularity of their garden columns is a thing of the past.

It is odd that newspaper publishers are so clueless to the deep and abiding interests veteran gardeners—and dedicated readers—have in plants, wildlife and the environment. Almost 150 years have passed since Lincoln exhorted us to display “the better angels of our nature”. Instead, corporate media feeds us—and we eat up—a steady diet of trash, distracting us from the true purposes of life.

No wonder garden writers are nervous. However, they should try to appeal more often to our better angels. Stop hopping on the nearest horse of controversy and conflict in order to gain readership. Jumping on one horse, riding it ragged, and jumping on the next. And since when did “journalists” reprint press releases? Write the elegant and beautiful articles you are capable of. Or else draft articles and send them to India and Pakistan to be finished by graduates of the British-based education system.

Hurry up and evolve, newspapers—the blog barbarians are at the gates.

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