My coverage of the closing of Atención has gotten some positive and some negative response. You can't please all of the people all of the time. One critic wrote:
What you said about Atencion is reprehensible.
All the years I read the paper brought joy to
Us in SM. Why would you even comment. We
Will miss it immensely.
What I wrote about Atención was by no reasonable definition reprehensible. I wrote that the paper had lost some of its local focus, relying heavily on articles that had nothing to do with San Miguel or Mexico, and also that Que Pasa's event calendar hadn't been very good for years. I wrote these critiques, not to be mean, but to offer my professional opinion as to why Atención failed. After all, I am in the business.
The paper drops dead right in front of us all, and if I wonder why, I am "reprehensible"? If it had been a different pillar of the community that had collapsed, not Atención, would not Atención itself be commenting on the failure of that other institution right now?
Another reader wrote:
I enjoy getting your events newsletter and I applaud you for your efforts to fill a niche now that Atencion is out of business. HOWEVER, THE APPROACH YOU USED TO MENTION THE CLOSING OF ATENCION IS, IN MY OPINION, WAS UNPROFESSIONAL AND CLASSLESS. A mention about their news role in the community for many years would have been more appropriate.
The only possible unprofessionalism (and I think it was very clever) I've written on the subject so far is, "The Atención we knew and loved left the building a long time ago."
There have been many laudatory, well-deserved eulogies given for Atención across the internet. Yes, they did yeoman's work, keeping us informed and entertained for half a century. Bravo and RIP, dear friend.
But aside from those laurels, some of us would like to understand what happened. Why did we lose such a valuable, treasured resource, which the community at large will miss immensely?
With the negative reaction I got just by mentioning the paper's loss of local focus, I am not going to get into specifics. I'm not going to share the insider critiques I've gotten from former employees of the paper. Things went wrong, but let's just say that paper is a hard business.
Shakespeare famously counted the different ways there are to love.
You might love a baseball team, but not with the love of the team's manager. You may watch the game from a seat right behind home plate, but you don't see things like they do from the dugout.
You may love driving your car, without ever wondering what is under the hood, let alone taking apart and reassembling the engine, as youthful aficionados once did.
I loved Atención, too. I loved it, if not more than you did, than differently than you did. In fact, I loved it so much that I got into the business. I copied it. In my own small way, I did what it did. I did it online and with a more complete event calendar. Lokkal was a bit like a child imitating its father or mother. In a very real, very professional sense, I was in the family.
My critics loved turning Atención's pages, reading about local happenings. And, yes, that is the bottom line, true love. But I got on the field and played the game. I stuck my head, and my wrenches, under the hood. Their hands may have been a bit stained from newsprint rubbed off the page. But my hands are still black with ink from the printing press, metaphorically speaking.
Atención was more than a newspaper. It was a window onto San Miguel. It was a mirror that showed us ourselves as a community. It defined and was a pillar of our community. And that pillar has fallen.
When it fell, a lot of weight shifted onto Lokkal. There is no other event calendar/magazine in town. Atencións were enormous shoes to fill. And, as much as I saw it coming and prepared for the day, I'm not saying that, as things are, Lokkal is entirely ready to fill them. But, with no disrespect, as Samuel Jackson said in Pulp Fiction: "I'm trying real hard."
It's small consolation to those left behind when someone dies to point out that their loved one's legacy endures. But Atención's community spirit lives on, and Lokkal is carrying that torch.
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Dr. David presents Lokkal, the social network, the prettiest, most-efficient way to see San Miguel online. Our Wall shows it all. Join and add your point of view.
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Please contribute to Lokkal, SMA's online collective:
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Discover Lokkal: Watch the two-minute video below. Then, just below that, scroll down SMA's Community Wall. Mission
