Well...I didn't read the "News" today, oh boy

I read the newspaper for the second Saturday in a row but I still didn't see my much heralded column (heralded at least by me) that was to appear. Well, so much for the greatest comeback in journalistic history!
I got bumped again by all of the pictures of Johnny and Janey and dogs and cats and Church news and whatever. Ironically, it reminds me of the days when I was an editor and would have to answer calls from my reporters and stringers wondering "what happened to my story?"
Back in the old Linotype days when reporters wore Fedoras (for you under 30, these were Tom Landry hats) with Press Cards sticking out of the hat band, I would have inches and inches of hot breaking news, feature stories, mounds of pictures, announcements and of course ads all of which had to be squeezed into so much space. We lived by the rule of thumb of 55% news, 45% ads. As you can tell by looking at your local newspaper today, this ad ratio no longer exists.
As I was trying to make my deadline of getting the newspaper "put to bed", I would find myself snipping copy, cropping photos and rearranging stories to try and make everything fit. It was the proverbial putting 10 lbs. of s*** in a 5 lb bag. It doesn't fit. And, I got calls about it when so-and-so's mother didn't see the story about Susie that the reporter said would be in the next edition. Even worse was when I would have a picture of 4 people and the person on the end got sliced off before final publication.
I can remember one incident when a person had sworn to his wife that he had been at an event and he would have the evidence to show her when the photo came out in the newspaper. Unfortunately, he was the one on the end and got left off. He called and begged me to contact his wife and tell her he was really in the picture.
It was a lonely job as an editor. Nobody was ever happy. There were reporters who felt like they had the exact number of perfect words for their stories. Stringers, people who were only paid for the number of inches that appeared in the newspaper, were short changed and their only income was reduced. And readers who were expecting their 15 minutes of fame were all angry and disappointed. Alas, I guess what goes around, comes around and I now suffer the same anxiety.
But you know what?. I still have my blog.
I can write and write to no end. I don't have ads that have to be worked around. I can use all of the pictures I want. And, I don't have to answer to ANYONE. I can even say......If you don't like it.....Don't read it!....without any fear of losing revenue.
I can write and edit when I want to. I can even cuss and rant about anything I choose.
"Newspapers? We don't need no stinking newspapers" (restructured quote from Treasure of Sierra Madres ). I can misspell wurds. I can use poor grammar. I can even use the word ain't if I want to. I can even end the sentence in a preposition sort of.
So there. Thanks to the world of blogs, I have everything I want. I'm happy. You're happy and all's right with the world.
Hell, I might even decide to start wearing a Fedora again!!