What Chuck Peddle’s death says about the state of local journalism

Among the things I really miss with the near-death of local journalism, are the stories of what you might call the B Team of history.

I don’t mean the ‘B’ designation to diminish these folks. In fact, the more descriptive letters might be VIP.

I’m thinking of the lesser-known players who were nonetheless key in creating movements and contributing to watershed events that were crucial to changing the way we all live.

This struck me again today as I spotted the obituary of Chuck Peddle in the Wall Street Journal. (The Santa Cruz, Calif., resident’s death was also covered by The New York Times and a host of trade and other publications.)

Peddle led the design of the first microprocessor practical enough and cheap enough to power personal computers and he led the design of the Commodore PET(circa 1977). Not long ago, his death would have inspired a richly written obituary chock-full of local perspectives and details in the Mercury News of San Jose (once the San Jose Mercury News).

But not today.

Alden Global Capital is strip-mining the Mercury News

I’m not blaming the journalists at the present-day Merc for not using their precious resources to produce an obituary about a tech pioneer well-known in a relatively tight circle.

The Merc simply has too few people to cover too much news. The San Jose news operation is among those being strip-mined by Alden Global Capital, which is cutting editorial staffs and selling off property at newspapers across the country. It’s a wonder that the Merc’s journalists can even get the paper out every day.

And honestly, we’re missing out on a lot more than the stories of those who helped build Silicon Valley by not having a local newspaper capable of robust local coverage. Consider the shenanigans that could be going on in local government or at local corporations or educational institutions when no one is watching them.

Still, selfishly, I’ve always loved the way local papers give their communities a sense of place — in fact, a sense of community. High-quality local newspapers, like the San Jose Mercury News of old, were places where readers could practically feel the fabric of the places where they lived.

It’s where readers could either reminisce about people like Peddle, or learn for the first time about their contributions. Doug Fairbairn, a director at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., put Peddle’s importance and the importance of his MOS 6502 in perspective for The New York Times.

“Chuck Peddle is one of the great unsung heroes of the personal computer age,” Fairbairn told the Times. “Virtually all of the early, successful, mass-market personal computers were built around the 6502, not chips from Intel or anyone else.”

And yeah, I did find it a little ironic, or sad, or something, that the Times’ lead eulogical quote in the Peddle obit came from the Merc’s backyard.

Chuck Peddle was in and of Silicon Valley

But why not? Peddle was in and of Silicon Valley. I’ve been reading about how one of the first customers for Peddle’s MOS 6502 microprocessor was Steve Wozniak, an Apple co-founder, who bought some from Peddle at a trade show.

“On the way home, I studied the chip architecture and came to the conclusion that it was the best out there,” Woz told the Wall Street Journal in an emailed comment for the Peddle obituary.

It’s not as if Peddle didn’t get any ink in the Mercury News. Stories from years ago in the newspaper of Silicon Valley did tell of Peddle’s investment in Apple in its earliest days and of his contribution to gaming and personal computing.

And so Peddle is there, in the first draft of history. But I still do wonder: Who’s covering the Chuck Peddles of today?