Not only is this Jill Lepore article in The New Yorker a thoughtful meditation on the death of journ

Not only is this Jill Lepore article in The New Yorker a thoughtful meditation on the death of journalism's path to professional development, but it ends on a stunning and heartbreaking personal moment that's completely salient and you won't see coming.

Here's the quote from early on that totally locked me in though:

From bushy-bearded nineteenth-century politicians to baby-faced George W. Bush, the paper was steadfastly Republican, if mainly concerned with scandals and mustachioed villains close to home: overdue repairs to the main branch of the public library, police raids on illegal betting establishments—“Worcester Dog Chases Worcester Cat Over Worcester Fence,” as the old Washington press-corps joke about a typical headline in a local paper goes. Its pages rolled off giant, thrumming presses in a four-story building that overlooked City Hall the way every city paper used to look out over every city hall, the Bat-Signal over Gotham.

Emphasis mine.