I’m dropping one newspaper for dropping one comic

Bill Knight column for 4-8, 9 or 10, 2019

I love and prize daily newspapers. They’re important to democracy. But readers pay for the product and customer service.

Every day our house gets three national papers, two regional papers and four local dailies.

Make that THREE, now.

In the last few years, I came to realize my favorite parts had become the front and opinion pages, the sports sections and the comics.

Despite being a home-delivery, mail and retail customer for decades, changing contents changed me from a “Loyal” to a “Potential” reader, according to terms from a Society of Professional Journalists conference years ago. “Loyals” stick with a paper, no matter what. “Potentials” occasionally pick up papers, like for Wednesday’s grocery ads and food features or Sunday’s inserts and expanded arts coverage, etc., and they might buy copies more often if they discovered other contents they also liked.

The other term for regular readers (as opposed to former readers), researchers said, was “At-Risk,” people who subscribe but are vulnerable to almost anything provoking their departure. Raising subscription prices, dropping a favorite columnist, failing to reliably deliver the paper, instituting earlier deadlines to make West Coast games impossible to cover, etc. all can be the Last Straw.

“That’s it!” At-Risks will say.

 Following many previous Straws, one of the papers we get dropped “Non Sequitur” by Wiley Miller, and after weeks without the comical, satirical and sometimes political comic strip, I’m saying “That’s it!”

The paper’s decision was stampeded by multiple fainthearted publishers. They either swooned at Miller’s controversial (and inadvertently retained) vulgarity disrespecting Donald Trump one Sunday, or they cowered before the thought of readers so incensed by using a crudity (which many undoubtedly use) that they’d descend on offices with torches, pitchforks and cancellations.

“We can’t have such language in a family publication!” some probably preached self-righteously after smelling salts and before realizing that some editor could’ve caught the word and stopped it. Of course, unless the word was pointed out, few folks did notice it. You need a magnifying glass to see the curse word, which Miller, venting personal rage at the President, intended to delete before transmitting the art weeks after drawing it, he explained when he publicly apologized.

That was good enough for the Los Angeles Times, which reinstated “Non Sequitur” after less than a month (and many complaints about dropping it from readers lucky enough to reach someone still working there). Regrets didn’t matter to other papers, such as the Tulsa World, which dropped the comic EVEN THOUGH IT DOESN’T EVEN RUN MILLER’S SUNDAY STRIP. That shows some newspaper execs’ spineless pandering to a vocal minority that claims to get the vapors over harmless barbs yet celebrates offensiveness on an unprecedented scale if it’s expressed by a bully with a flag lapel pin and an amazing knack for somehow claiming Christian standards.

“Non Sequitur” is a pretty traditional, mildly liberal comic, an insightful, smart feature that’s earned four National Cartoonists Society honors. I missed Miller’s wit and style of illustration, but mostly his stories and characters. There’s Joe Pyle, a former talk-radio host and puzzled dad to young daughters Danae and Kate. Danae has adventures with her chatty, tiny Clydesdale horse, and Kate plays with her less-talkative dogs Rolf and Petey. Their grandma Flo runs a diner whose lunch-counter customers include fisherman and Tall-Tale-teller Captain Eddie, who has his own animal companion, an enterprising cat named Paulie, and supporting characters include Obviousman, the ghostly Uncle Reginald, and occasional cameos by intelligent bears, an unnamed bulldog and St. Peter.

I highly recommend it (and now enjoy it before each dawn via GoComics.com.)

I also recommend supporting your daily newspaper. But let its decision-makers hear your feedback.