Up until about two years ago, I bought at least one (usually local) newspaper every day. The internet has changed that.
My home town has two daily papers, they both publish an online version. One is free online, the other is restricted to those who purchase a subscription.
It’s very rare that I actually buy a newspaper now, instead I get the news from the free version.
Why, I wonder, would the publication be available online for free? What is the incentive for the newspaper company? Similarly, why would the other paper charge a fee? Would it not cost them a substantial number of readers? Have others forgone the daily news from a physical newspaper in favour of an online version?
I still am drawn to the physical page turning and crispness of the morning shot of news. Maybe the images words create still beat 10 second shots of footage on the TV. Plus ys
That said, I don’t actually buy papers, as I am in college. The one thing I have learned, growing up on the local paper and the Wall Street Journal is: I will certainly only subscribe to WSJ. Personal growth has led to a desire to banish inferior reporting and waste of space articles. The only real news is the well-written, complex, and studied story.
I still am drawn to the physical page turning and crispness of the morning shot of news. Maybe the images words create still beat 10 second shots of footage on the TV. Plus ys
That said, I don’t actually buy papers, as I am in college. The one thing I have learned, growing up on the local paper and the Wall Street Journal is: I will certainly only subscribe to WSJ. Personal growth has led to a desire to banish inferior reporting and waste of space articles. The only real news is the well-written, complex, and studied story.
I still get the free local suburban papers, and clip articles from them of interest. But, in the main – I prefer online versions. Sitting down, not even having to brave the weather walking to the letterbox on a lousy winter’s day, because I can flick up a page on the monitor while checking SDMB threads is too cool. It’s a concept to which I’m hooked. My purchase of newspapers is probably down to single figures annually, if that.
Years ago a friend of mine was working on the nightly news on the most popular TV news program in Sydney. We were talking about the content of the news - if there’s footage it’s on TV kind of thing. He said to me “Don’t ever fall for this shit as journalism. How many words do you think you hear in an average news broadcast, including sign on, sign off and bullshit?” I took a few guesses. The correct answer was less than one page of newsprint. He and all his cohorts in the media were very disparaging of anyone who uses TV as their news source. He says “They get the news they deserve to get.” So although the evening papers have gone I read a morning paper every day.
In the past I have subscribed to the metro papers (Mpls. or St. Paul, never both at the same time), but it got to the point that I was sick of the ads - I feel ads are OK if the paper is free, but paying $1.25 for something that is 3/4 ads, 1/4 news, is not a good deal, in my book. All the major stuff news shows up on the online sites, anyway.
I also used to get the local paper which comes out weekly, but I don’t really care about high school sports scores (at least 5 pages worth), the “who got arrested” pages (4-5 pages worth), the religious section (2 pages worth), the local ladies clubs (2-3 pages worth), or the what is happening in our schools section. There is even a “Mrs. Jane Doe hosted a luncheon for her family”, “Mr. and Mrs. John Smith have returned from their vacation in Assboink, Idaho.” section (the brag section, I call it), I mean, really. It is a very gossipy paper. So when I realized I was buying the paper and only reading the first 2-3 pages of a two-section paper, I dropped my sub.
I buy about three newspapers per year - usually around now when they are running their ‘review of the year’ compilations. I keep these in storage for, um, some sort of pointless nostalgic reason which isn’t very clear right now.
I subscribed to the Times-Union when we moved here in July of 2000. I don’t think I took it for a full year. Most of the sections got recycled unread, and I found I could get the news I needed on line.
Long ago in a galaxy far, far away (high school) I used to buy 120 newspapers everyday. Of course, I delivered 119 of them to my neighbors (who paid me hansomely for them).
Today, I am hard-pressed to buy one in a blue moon, what with cable and the Internet.
I was a newpaper junkie. In 1988 I would buy the Boston Globe, the Herald, and the National (long-defunct sports daily, great paper) every day. I would probably still get the SF Chronicle if someone hadn’t started stealing my copy in the morning.
So, short answer, I don’t take the paper any more.
I used to get the Globe and Mail every day, and read the main section over breakfast/coffee. The ROB and the Entertainment section kept me occupied through lunch.
Now, I get most of my news online-- but mainly because my income has taken a hit, and a subscription seems extravagant when I get my news for free online. I still prefer to have the print edition in my hands and will usually pick it up at a box if I’m having breakfast out. I probably would do so even if I had a laptop w/ wireless internet with me.
Although i’ll usually end up looking at several sources online anyway, (if a story piques my interest,) and I have no complaints about the online edition of the Globe, as soon as my budget will allow it, I anticipate subscribing again. For some reason, although they’re available, it never feels “right” to read the fluffier bits of the Globe online. The back page, for instance, is a joy and delight to the muddy soul. Four days a week, it is occupied by a reader’s essay about the minutia of their daily life, a celebratory obituary/eulogy about a notable (but usually obscure) person, written by someone close to them, and jjoy of joys, Social Studies, a daily miscellany of information, by Michael Kesterson*.. I can’t bring myself to read any of these things online. They are meant to be read off of a medium which also absorbs the stray bits of creamed cheese which drop of your bagel. I’m not sure why, but I just don’t get the same satisfaction out of reading them online.
For a quick appraisal of the events of the last 24 hours, the online edition does fine-- but I never get to “pick the bones of it.” A quick skim and you’re done.
I’m sure I’m going to Green Hell, but I miss my print edition.
