Buzz's Journal: I, Too, Can Change

This is the final edition of a newspaper that started publication in Paris 126 years ago as The New York Herald.  I’ve been reading it for 55 years. 

This is the first edition under its new name.  I wonder if it will last for another 126 years?

Bangkok, Thailand.  October 15, 2013.  Yesterday, one more of my connections with the past disappeared:  the International Herald Tribune changed its name to the International New York Times.  My first contact with The Trib was in 1958, when, at age 20, I lived and studied in England.  The Trib was written and published in Paris, and was every expat American’s connection with the US, but above all, it was romantic.  Nothing can equal the feeling I had sitting for the first time in Paris in December 1958, in a French café drinking coffee and reading the Trib.  It was my connection to Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ford Maddox Ford, as well as to the glamorous present of Art Buchwald and Pierre Salinger.  America was riding high and so was I.  Then, after I moved to Bangkok in the early 2000’s and the International Herald Tribune began early morning home delivery in Bangkok, of its Asia edition, I have started off each day, first by reading The Bangkok Post, followed by reading my copy of the IHT.

I do not welcome the name change, but I, also, am changing:  I canceled home delivery of the International New York Times, and instead, I will now read it daily, as before, but on my Kindle e reader.  I guess this means that we both are moving ahead.  As long as the NYT maintains its commitment to quality journalism, I will be with it, regardless of its name or the media.