For my article in today’s paper about the renovation and re-opening of the Polish Home Hall in Curtis Bay, I interviewed Catherine Benicewicz, a 90-year South Baltimorean and a child of Polish immigrants.

Mrs. Benicewicz is, for starters, adorable (when I asked how to spell her name, she said, “Be Nice W-I-C-Z”), but she also had a steel trap memory and wonderful stories to tell me. The best, however, was about her father, Anthony Tanowski, who was on the board of the Polish cultural society that owned the hall.

Tarnowski came to the U.S. on a boat in 1906 or 1907, Benicewicz said, from Czarist Poland. There, he was forced to speak Russian in schools, and learn to read and write the Cyrillic alphabet, even while speaking Polish at home. When he got to America, at age 16, the first thing he did, she said, was to buy a handwriting manual to improve his penmanship in the Western alphabet. The next thing he did was buy a copy of The Evening Sun, and was a loyal devotee of that newspaper for decades to come.

“Over there, you can’t even learn your own language in school,” she said, “but over here you have the right to be informed, to know what’s going on.”

Take note, all you Internet newspaper freeloaders: A 90-year-old Polish lady in South Baltimore just schooled you in the art of learning to appreciate what you’ve got right in front of your nose.

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This time it’s the Ann Arbor News, a 174-year-old publication, that will cease production this year. Publisher Laurel Champion, “visibly emotional,” according to the story on the Web site, broke the news to employees this morning, saying that the paper’s last issue will be some time in July.

The News will be replaced by AnnArbor.com, described as a “community news and information service.” AnnArbor.com also will produce a newspaper on Thursdays and Sundays (the big advertising insert days).

I have noticed that my reaction to these stories has changed from one of “What?!? You’re kidding!” to “Oh man, there goes another one.”

Reader reactions to the story published online by The News ranged from the trite (“RIP AAnews. The ship finally sunk.”) to condolences for the reporters and editors to the surprised/upset (“How are you supposed to take a computer into the bathroom????”)

This marks the third major newspaper this year to announce it’s ceasing operations. The Rocky Mountain News closed  in February after 150 years, and last week the 146-year-old Seattle Post-Intelligencer went Web-only. Not to mention all the smaller dailies and weeklies that have closed or had to severely adjust their business models in this swiftly changing media environment.

When — and where — will this roller coaster end? It seems clear that online communications is swallowing the industry whole…what form of mass media will be spit out remains to be seen. But what is clear is, if you’re not online, you’ll be left in the dust. And when you think about who that then leaves out, are we tacitly admitting we’re OK with that?

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For those of us in the newspaper industry who have been paying attention to the mainstream media’s struggles, the subject of the New York Times’ new headquarters building has been of particular interest.

The 52-story building on 8th Avenue near Times Square, estimated to be worth between $850 million and $1 billion, was designed by superstar Italian architect Renzo Piano and completed in 2007, right around the beginning of what we now know is a major recession, and at the beginning a tumultuous period for newspapers in general. Over the course of its first year in the new building, the Times’ dividend tumbled 75 percent as ad sales and classifieds dried up.

In December, the New York Times Co. announced that it would mortgage its portion of the building — the rest of it is owned by New York real estate giant Forest City Ratner Cos. — for $225 million to raise cash for a $400 million debt payment due in May.

Now, the news comes today from Mediamemo.com that the Times has entered into a sale-leaseback agreement on the property with the W.P. Carey Co., led by Baltimore-born real estate investor William Polk Carey, who was profiled in our newspaper last year. Carey’s company specializes in the sale-leaseback method of investment, in which it buys headquarters of cash-poor companies and leases them back to the companies at higher rates.

In this case, the New York Times will pay $2 million a month on a 15-year lease, and after 10 years, will have a chance to buy the space back for $250 million. If that were to happen, Carey would have literally doubled his investment in 10 years, at the expense of a pretty high risk factor — the Times is in bad shape in general, and has another big line of credit, worth $366.3, coming due in two years. It’s not clear which company is in better shape, at the end of the day.

ROBBIE WHELAN, Business Writer

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The Baltimore Examiner’s last issue Sunday featured a front page covered by a photo of the Inner Harbor with the headline “Goodbye, Baltimore…Thanks for reading.”

The issue was filled with not just news, but with sad goodbyes from the daily newspaper’s staff and their readers. State House Bureau Chief Len Lazarick wrote in his final column about the changing face of Maryland politics over the last 35 years he’s been covering the State House.

“Peace and blessings to all,” he ended.

“So long, Bawlamer, thanks for reading,” was the headline on Michael Olesker’s column.

Guest columnist and sports marketer Bob Leffler, wrote the newspaper had “gone to the annals of Baltimore’s rich media history.”

In case you missed the hard copy, the Web site also has a string of goodbyes on its homepage, including one from Editor Frank Keegan and one from Publisher Michael Beatty.

Is it true what they say about not realizing the value of something until it’s gone? For all its short articles written by many times over worked reporters, will you miss what the Examiner added to the Baltimore media scene?

LIZ FARMER, Business Writer

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A study on the changing newspaper industry released this week by the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that most papers today were cutting back significantly on not only the tangibles like staff and total pages, but that many were sacrificing international and national news for local and community news.

The Baltimore Sun and other major dailies announced such transformations this summer.

Not that covering more of where you live is a bad thing but is raises two questions with me. One, what’s going to happen to the little guys — those weekly or biweekly papers who used to be the sole champions of community coverage? Having interned for such a paper I know firsthand that those publications pride themselves on being the ones that parents scour to see their kid’s sports achievements in print or act as a platform for small town activists to voice their issues.

If the major dailies start horning in on the community coverage, what’s left for the smaller publications to call their own and justify their existence?

Another point of concern is this turning away from covering the global community. Being an American history buff, I of course have to point out the similarities between this notion and the isolationist 1920s when post-war fatigue and an increased focus on the material world were abruptly followed by the Great Depression in 1929 and World War II ten years later.

Now, I’m not trying to say that isolationism caused WWII, but in this day and age the world is much smaller and it helps to know what the guy on the other side of the pond thinks of you. Or at least have an idea of what they’re up to.

International news may not be as widely read as the sports section but it’s still a big part of what’s going on in our world today. Do you think it’s a newspaper’s duty to cover what’s going on in other countries, or to just print what’s popular with readers?

LIZ FARMER, Business Writer  

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Here’s something that might interest you, the dear and gentle readers of The Daily Record. While it’s true that most anything you could ever wish to know can be found in the pages of our fine daily, there is — on occasion — a topic of interest that falls just outside of our journalistic reach. It’s good to know that in such trying times, The Wall Street Journal is there to lend a hand.

That hand is about to become a tad more expensive. On July 28, the newsstand price for the paper will go from $1.50 to $2.

That’s likely no big deal to the readers of one of the world’s most prominent financial papers. Heck, it’s not even a big deal to lowly Web Specialists such as me. In my mind, the “big deal” about the price increase is what it might indicate about the paper’s changing money-making strategy. From Portfolio.com, via Editor & Publisher:

“Interestingly, the hike comes as the paper’s editors are being urged to think more about how they can use the front page to boost newsstand sales — not something that has traditionally been a major focus.”

I wonder about this. I have no clue what percentage of the Journal’s readers pick up their papers at newsstands and newspaper boxes, but I am curious how often an eye-catching front page inspires a passerby to make a purchase. Do big headlines and flashy artwork cause you to reach for your wallet?

JOE BACCHUS, Web Specialist

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