Remembering: the Tucson Citizen

I was on Twitter Monday night and I was checking on the updates that I missed while I was at work. I'm not gonna front, most of it was garbage. But I saw that Swish, always quality on Twitter, posted one update that really piqued my interest.

Looks like my hometown paper is about to Die.




When I first got on Twitter I'd found out that Swish and I hailed from the same place. So that update really gave me pause. I clicked the corresponding link and my heart sank. The paper that gave me my first byline was no more.

I'm really sort of sad about the passing of the Tucson Citizen. I shouldn't be surprised, but I am. I mean, I was a fan of the recently folded Blender and I just donated some money to Paste so they can keep publishing. King just died and even Scratch was an early victim of the current ad famine for periodicals. But I guess I just didn't see the Citizen folding.

And I can't front; I wasn't the biggest fan of the Citizen. Growing up in Tucson, the Citizen's local focus seemed a bit too narrow for me. I preferred the Arizona Daily Star. Plus the Star had better comics.

But all that changed when I got an internship at the Tucson Citizen. My first day at the paper; Monday June 13, 1994. To most people that date doesn't mean much, but I'll never forget it.

Y'see my mom was driving me to the Citizen's offices and the radio in the car was on. The big story that day was something about how two bodies had been found at O.J. Simpson's ex's house. So my first day getting a look at the workings of a daily newspaper was the day the O.J. story broke.

It was so dope being in the newsroom and watching everything unfold. It internet was still in it's infancy, so I got every bit of info on the case as it broke and before most people did.

The scene wasn't like one of those black and white movies where everyone's dialogue comes out lightning fast and snappy, but the energy was the same. Having a big story like that and knowing that people would be looking for actual news in the next edition seemed to fill everyone at the Citizen with energy and journalistic vigor, despite the fact that it was a national story with no local connection.

Even I felt like I was a real journalist, though I was little more than Jimmy Olsen, a guy who was doing busy work no one else wanted to do.

So that summer I got to see the Fourth Estate at it's finest. I was even able to write a few things. I wrote a Cheap Eats for my favorite local spot; the Grande Tortilla Factory (sadly now equally defunct.) And I wrote a lead feature for the Living section. I still have the printing plate for story.

It's a little worse for the wear, but you can still see my byline and the story that I wrote. It's not like I ever followed up on that byline. At some point I realized that journalism wasn't for me and the freedom of being a blogger was more enticing, if less lucrative.

Part of me thinks that I'm too young to be experiencing the loss of things from my past. Another part of me rationalizes that it's a sign of the time that we live in when time moves more quickly than it used to. Part of me want to visit home the next change I get while another wonders what's the point.

It's ironic that I heard about the demise of the Tucson Citizen on Twitter and then blogged about it. Especially when you consider that it's just shy of the 15 anniversary of my first day there and my first taste of real journalism. Usually I revel in such irony, but since it hits so close to home, I'm actually rather sad.

It's almost enough to make me stop blogging and become a real journalist. Hopefully that's just a temporary notion.

Goodbye Tucson Citizen. Thanks for everything. You will be missed.