Hello. Welcome to Leah Letter. I am Leah and this is my Letter. This news letter is going to revolutionize content. Haha. Just kidding. This is a news letter about the media and how it sucks.
To begin I would like to tell you a story about my grandpa, John Joseph Finnegan II, an extremely Irish man. When I was 6, my grandpa had a massive stroke. Things did not look good. But preoccupied with death as many Catholics are, my grandma was well-prepared for his ascension to wherever Catholics are sent when they die. When she wasn't trying to secretly baptize my brother and I, my grandma relished taking us to visit what she called her and grandpa's "underground condominiums," AKA their graves. Just their dates of death were missing from their tombstones.
Anyway, Grandpa's stroke. To prepare my brother and I for what seemed like Grandpa's imminent death, my grandma bought my brother and I a book titled Why Did Grandpa Die? The book, published in 1985, tells the story of a girl named Molly whose grandpa dies. Molly is very sad. Her mom teaches her about death using a butterfly. When a grandpa dies, he becomes a butterfly. A nice end for a man.
The book made me very sad and confused, in large part because my Grandpa didn't die. In fact, he lived for nearly 10 more years.
I tell you this story not for sympathy but to relate it to the topic on which I write: the media. The media was supposed to have died 97 times already, at least according to the men who analyze the media, and yet, here we are. Not dead. I am constantly reliving my grandfather's non-death each day David Brooks, Ezra Klein, and I power on our Samsung Galaxy Note 7s.
The media is bad. Sometimes it is good. This letter will be about both of those times but mainly the former. I welcome your feedback, support, mean tweets, and memes. Join me and my grandpa's spirit every Tuesday in your inbox.
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