Radio Sweethearts

This week’s “On the Media” is all Bob Garfield, all the time. And with no Brooke Gladstone to rein him in, Bob lets his internet-will-kill-everything fear run rampant.

He even refers to something called a “Web blog.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t most blogs on the Web?

But before we dig into how Bob blows his day out, let’s take notice of his last kicks on the dead dog of the Bush Administration – because by the time most of you read this, Bush won’t even be the president anymore. I agree with Bob, word for word, but something about his tirade here seems less “tirade” and more “screed.”

Maybe it seems opportunistic, coming as it does right before a president with an historically low approval rating officially leaves office (though, really, Bush is probably currently vacationing at the ranch in Crawford rather than packing his bags),  but I really can’t figure out what about this rings false to me.

Unless…

It really seems like Bob is trying to usurp Brooke’s role in her absence. He starts off with a blusterbomb of Brooke-wannabe opinion and fingerpointing (which really, despite dad jokes and groan-inducing puns, seems promising), and then loses steam when he devotes over half of the the episode’s time to the death of the newspaper industry, which um, hasn’t died yet, even if it is gasping.

As far as the newspaper thing goes, I’m frankly tired of hearing about it. I know print journalism is struggling. I know it without having to listen to Bob – there is a girl asleep (alone) in my bed who works for that industry (though she works for the part of the industry that isn’t really in much danger – her job is tied to online revenue).

I’d like, honestly, to go join her. I like her, and I’m quite tired. But we agreed, together, to write every week about how Bob is still in a panic about the internet existing. Or rather, about how Bob sounds like he totally has a crush on Brooke. But lately, it seems that every week is about Bob running around like Chicken Little, proclaming the death of an industry that hasn’t died.

Or really, maybe it’s more like Egon from “Ghostbusters” who was saying “print is dead” back in 1984. I like Bob Garfield, I really do, but with regard to the print industry’s death – and the wonderment about anyone starting a new print publication – he seem like a blowhard making himself more irrelevant with each breath. It’s 2009, and in the intervening years since Egon made his statement, print has not died – even if my refridgerator occasionally does serve as a gateway to the Babylonian god Zool.

Print will suffer. Online will gather strength and bring in greater resources. But print will not die; it will limp along just to spite Bob Garfield and his oracle-like certainty that newspapers are already dead.

I’m really tired of talking about this and insisting that Bob’s insistence is boring. I don’t want to be dragged down with him.