Missing Laura, and appreciating the E-R

It is Inauguration Day and I am holding today’s Chico Enterprise-Record in my hands, reading the lead story about our new president. It is a good feeling, turning from page to printed page.

Print journalism is in my blood. I received my first paycheck from a newspaper when I was seventeen years old. (I am now age 78.) I was one of those persons who never went to work without a copy of the Associated Press Style Book nearby.

At my daily newspaper, this was the standard. It was best that you caught your errors in style before the proofreader did so.

I understand fully the plight of today’s newspaper publishers. We are in a new era where information is most often found on a screen rather than on a page of newsprint. Newspapers are a business: one must produce a profit to succeed and continue.

The Redding Record-Searchlight, a regional beacon for decades, recently ceased to produce a print edition locally. A rare exception is the Los Angeles Times. With a new — and independent — owner, The Times is again the best newspaper in the West.

I congratulate E-R Editor Mike Wolcott for persisting against odds to maintain a daily newspaper of quality.

But that’s not why I am writing. What I want to say is that I am going to miss the outstanding writing of Laura Urseny. She was consistent and she was accurate. What more can you ask for from a career journalist?

— Ronald Angle, Chico