The irony of National Newspaper Week hits home

Suffice it to say, I love newspapers. Always have. Always will.

It helps having grown up in the Chicago suburbs at a time when four daily newspapers were in their heyday. I don't know about the proverbial printer's ink in my blood, but that stuff is tough to get off your hands, I know that.

While some people collect postcards and other trinkets from places they visit, I gravitate to the newspaper rack and check out what papers are available. I usually end up with at least one to peruse when I get home.

Heck, I've even been known to pull an old crumbled, ripped newspaper page out of a packing crate to read an interesting story or do the crossword puzzle. My wife knows me so well, she brings me back newspapers from the road.

Obviously, I will never be that guy who gets all his news from the Internet. I want to hold the paper in my hand, smell the newsprint and hear the newsprint crackle with each little movement.

So why am I getting all sentimental about newspapers?

I mean we're talking about a product we work and slave over, only to essentially see tossed aside at the end of the day.

Granted, if you take a hint from Heloise, you know you can clean your windows and windshield and not leave streaks by using old newspapers. You can swat flies with yesterday's paper or even today's if you don't mind a little bug guts with your classifieds. Or you can line the birdcage or cover a picnic table with our leftovers. Try that sometime with Twitter.

But those are just the cartoon versions of our existence.

Whether you realize it or not, we're in the midst of National Newspaper Week 2011. Cue the balloons and the confetti. And now it's Friday, and I still haven't figured out how to celebrate.

Definitely there won't be any parades, floats or brass bands. Mayor Murray won't be signing any proclamation to the effect. And nobody is getting even a half-day off school.

The National Newspaper Week theme this year is "Newspapers -- Your No. 1 Source for Local News," a notion meant to underscore the importance of the nation's newspapers in the daily lives of citizens.

And despite all the gloom and doom in our industry, surveys still indicate 70 percent of Americans say they get the majority of their local news from newspapers.

In fact, a recent Pew Research Center survey focused on 16 local news topics with newspapers ranking first in 11 of them, including community events, crime, local government, taxes, zoning and development, social services, and the arts.

TV is king for breaking news and weather, of course, while radio leads in traffic information and the Internet is the top source for information about restaurants and local business (and is tied with newspapers for news about jobs, schools and housing).

As part of the survey, the Newspaper Association of America offers some interesting facts and figures, such as:

-- More than 160 million American have read a newspaper either in print or online in the past week. Compare that to the 10 million who have used Twitter in the last month.

-- Eighty-two percent of American adults have taken some action in the last month as a result of newspaper advertising.

-- When the Super Bowl is played in Indianapolis this coming February, 49 percent of U.S. households will be watching on TV. During the same timeframe, 70 percent of those households will be reading a newspaper.

And one of my favorite factoids: The number of printed words on the front page of a daily newspaper exceeds those included in an entire 30-minute network newscast.

And that's the way it is ...

So I was feeling pretty good about all that this week, and then Steve Jobs dies Wednesday night. And I learn about this death on Twitter. Yes, Twitter.

What irony, I thought, Steve Jobs -- the genius who changed the world in the computer age and ultimately my newspaper life with Mac equipment -- dies during National Newspaper Week.

And I can't even respond with "stop the presses." Just doesn't seem right somehow ...