I'm never going to be a star

Here's my conclusion after watching myself on the big screen at the Mark Twain House's auditorium last night: It's a good thing I never dreamed of hitting it big in Hollywood.

But I give the makers of "On Deadline: Is Time Running Out for the Press?" credit for making all of the people I knew in the CPTV documentary look better and sound more eloquent than they usually are in real life. Filmmakers John and Rosemary O'Neill certainly did that for me.

Anybody who cares about The Bristol Press should make sure to watch this solid, interesting and professional hour-long special on Connecticut Public Television this week. It airs at 8 p.m. Thursday and again at 10 p.m. Friday.

The panel discussion about the future of newspapers and news outlets that followed the documentary last night, which included both the Press owner, Michael Schroeder, and me, wasn't bad either. I think you can hear highlights from it on WNPR's always excellent "Where We Live" radio program at 9 a.m. Thursday.

I am sure that time is not running out for the press, or the Press, but what the future will bring, I have no idea. The days of newsprint are, clearly, drawing to a close, whether it's two years from now or 10. But that doesn't signal the demise of the press because I'm equally sure we'll be pushing ever more news online and searching out ways to get our work to readers however they want to receive it. 

There's still this touchy issue of how we get paid, of course, but that will ultimately get sorted out. As I've said lots of times, we're in a time of rapid change. The trick is to survive the rocky period so that we can share in whatever the future brings.

For Bristol, that's what important.

And I'm so glad that the efforts we made to keep this newspaper alive in its darkest days made it possible for it to survive, if not yet to thrive. 

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Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com