Western Pig is fixin’ to saddle up and hit the trail.

No News at Throat Lake is pretty good, but I’ve only read about the first third of it. It covers a British journalist’s sojourn in the small town near Northern Ireland in the 1990s, before Ireland had its mini-boom. He tries working on a farm for a bit, and describes it as “Quentin Tarantino’s All Creatures Great and Small, tons of blood and muck and swearing.”

Then he starts working for a local weekly newspaper where the editor is decidedly anti-establishment. The editor keeps publishing articles that annoy the local politicians, and he either doesn’t accept any advertising or had really tolerant advertisers. The editor also published an article about abortion which a reader sent in. This article was extremely unpopular, but the editor said something like, “This man had an opinion. The opinion deserved to be heard, so I published it.”

This is something that you just don’t see in media these days. If you offend the advertisers, you will be out on your butt, as seen in Penny Arcade’s take on the new games journalism (contains swearing). I do wonder, though: If papers and magazines weren’t beholden to their advertisers, what would they say? Would it be more true and insightful, or would it be the same bland lifeless dreck you see too much of these days?

There is one way to find out. Everyone with Net access in this day and age can start a blog through sites like this, and get the virtual equivalent of a printing press up and running. Write about inconsequential stuff, like the books you read or the TV shows you watch. Write about things that matter more, like the local political races that affect your community. But whatever you write, don’t write bovine feces like too many people in the public eye do. Say what you mean. Take a stand. Embrace unpopular ideas if you believe in them. Don’t censor yourself. I’m probably too old to be spouting idealistic nonsense like this, but I’m doing it anyway.

I still wonder why No News at Throat Lake is in the 000 section. Well, who am I to question the Dewey Decimal System overlords?