Newspapers can make good neighbors, or something like that. My neighbors use my old print newspapers to line their birdcage. Seriously.

It’s a bit of an assault to my sensibilities, as one who loves words printed on paper. I’ve had print newspapers delivered to my door my whole life. My mom was a subscriber. Reading the paper has always been as natural as the first cup of coffee in the morning. Getting a newspaper subscription was one of the first adulting steps after renting my first apartment.

As a writer, I’ve always respected the work of newspaper reporters, even knowing I couldn’t do that kind of writing. In college, I interned at the Cocoa Today, only in the advertising department. I quickly knew I didn’t want to do that long term, either.

So I went into public relations, which often takes a bad rap with the word “spin.” I hate that term. But part of the job is working with journalists, and I enjoyed that. (Great job security, too, because most other people don’t want to talk to them.) I valued those relationships – well, most of them – and considered it a matter of ethics and conscience to be truthful and open. Today, I laugh because my journo friends used to call p.r. “the dark side,” and now many of them have jumped to that same dark side.

But I digress….checking the daily newspaper for coverage of my organization (a hospital), for news that might affect my hospital, for community happenings I might need to know about….all of that came with the territory. Plus, we kept binders full of clipped stories for the hospital archives. (These were the dark ages.)  And yes, I saved some of the newspapers with my name in them, especially if I made the front page.

And of course, when children came along, I clipped articles about their academic achievements. Wedding announcements and obituaries were saved for friends, too. Later, I clipped articles for my neighbors about their son’s sports glories, but Nate is grown so Rebel the bird gets the papers.

The world has changed, though. For a long time, tv and radio had the advantage in scooping headlines, with newspapers following up with detail and depth. News is online in various formats now. LkldNow, a not-for-profit digital community news organization has emerged as the leader in our local news.

My local newspaper, The Ledger, posts articles online, sometimes days before they appear in print; sometimes, they never make the print edition. They stopped printing papers on Saturdays and on Monday holidays. Yet the subscription price keeps going up, even as they pushed us to digital. I know reporters and photographers need to be paid, but spending hundreds of dollars every 12 weeks has become ridiculous.

So hard as it was, we cancelled our print subscription last week. I’ll miss those pages. Reading on a laptop will never feel as personal, but I'll adjust.

The days of newspaper delivery via bicycle are long gone, but now the adult carriers in cars are losing jobs, too. (Editors have also lost jobs, and it’s appalling to see the mistakes that make it into…digital type. Another rant for another day.) Thankfully, the reporters keep reporting.

But I don’t know what will line the bottom of Rebel’s birdcage now.