Media Watch November 7, 2007

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

By PJH Staff

Original skids
Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Volume two, issue one of “The Ski Journal” arrived in the mail yesterday in an all-white envelope with my address hand-written on the mailing label along with a hand-written note to the USPS that said, “Bound printed matter.” Having launched just last year, TSJ quickly established itself as the type of ’zine you don’t want to crease the pages of, the type you’d never haphazardly throw across the room into your buddy’s lap, the type that justifies being called a Journal. Even the envelope it came in let me know it was something special.

This particular issue includes a 12-page spread written by Wilson resident Keith Benefiel accompanied by photos by long-time local Wade McKoy, News and Guide Editor Angus Thuermer Jr. as well as the author himself. The article is titled, “The Hatch of ’74” and is a memoir of sorts that follows Benefiel’s life from when he arrived in Jackson in the 70s until now.

Of course, when he arrived in town in his 20s he and his friends were skids who skied The Pass without a care. Jackson’s population has changed since that golden era, but the ski terrain remains. Skids continue to show up in Jackson Hole year after year, shred The Pass, sip beer in Wilson and try to scam a way to stay. The article, which would be a kick for any long-time transplant to read, rang true to this 26-year-old, two-years-in-town, might-still-get-flushed-out-of-the-area, newbie Pass skier.
— Sam Petri

Down with print
Another year, another drop in print newspaper readership.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) has released figures of a study that analyzed circulation rates for more than 700 daily newspapers over a six-month period ending September 2007.

ABC conducted the study over the same time period last year.

It found that 21 of the top 25 newspapers in daily circulation experienced losses this year. Circulation fell around 2.5 percent in 538 of the newspapers analyzed, with bigger drops in overall circulation for papers that filed on Sundays, according to Editor and Publisher Magazine.

Daily circulation for the New York Times, for example, fell 4.51 percent. Circulation for its Sunday paper fell 7.59 percent, though the paper did increase in price during this time. Paid circulation has shown overall declines over the past several years.
ABC is working to collect numbers that factor in online readership – an aspect of newspaper publishing that, as seems evident by the study, cannot be ignored.
— Grace Hammond

Godspeed, Cosmic Doolittle
This week marks the indefinite departure of one of Jackson Hole’s unique residents.
Joshua “Cosmic Josh” Doolittle has lived in the valley the past eight years, but he is returning to his hometown of Schenectady, NY, to undergo some long-overdue medical treatment that will hopefully get him physically up and running again.

Doolittle, as I call him, is a regular at the Brew Pub, a fixture at cultural events that offer free wine and beer, and a regular at the Teton County Library, where he uses the computers to craft the, um, interesting editorial letters he sends to this newspaper.
A self-described “Imagineer” by vocation, Doolittle is full of big ideas he knows will make the world a better place. As a person, he hopes to leave the world a more loving place, and few are as quick to point out profound coincidence and fortuitous happening as Doolittle is.

And for him – for whatever reason – those moments happen pretty regularly. On a recent, short road trip with Doolittle, I wasn’t sure if I could take his tangential rants that begin somewhere, end somewhere else, and make a few pit stops at seemingly unrelated events or ideas in between. But of course I could, and actually there are not many people in this town or anywhere who are as easy and genuine to be around as the Doo’.

I don’t mean to sound like I’m eulogizing Doolittle, but one of Jackson’s most paranoid thinkers and prolific letter writers, one of its more colorful characters, is going away for awhile. Maybe from afar, while in some recovery bed, he’ll spend more time rehashing government conspiracy theories or predicting the downfall of America by virtue of its pestilence. But Godspeed to you, Josh Doolittle. We’ll see you again.
— Ben Cannon
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Media Watch November 7, 2007 | Planet JH News Article: Media Watch

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