I never really read the paper until I took a politics class in high school. Since then, I have made a point of reading a daily newspaper and a weekly news magazine. I look at a few digital papers too. I possibly spend too much time reading the news, but at a minimum it is an antidote to the bubbles and blather sometimes found in other media. Maybe you even learn something, and it is said you remember proper print three times better than reading something on a screen.
Given the convenience of digitized media and the omnipresence of social media, I sometimes feel like not many people read a paper paper. And plenty have closed, consolidated or are slim shadows of their former selves.
So, you read a paper paper? Still delivered daily? Worth your time and effort?
I’d had a daily subscription to the Chicago Tribune, more or less non-stop, from 1989 (when I moved to Chicago) until earlier this year.
When I was commuting downtown, I’d read the paper on the train. I haven’t gone into the office since the beginning of COVID, and I found that I was rarely reading the paper. I finally cancelled it this past spring.
Since my parents were (local) newspaper publishers, I was accustomed growing up to get three daily papers and a raft of weeklies. We were always awash in journalism.
But now I cannot face dealing with that mountain of newsprint. I read the NYT and WaPo online, and sometimes the Boston Globe as the nearest daily to me. And my local barely-there newspaper as well. I miss the real paper, but since there is not even mail delivery up here, I’d have to drive several miles to get it every morning and that is not going to happen.
I’m afraid I’m one of the folks who are responsible for the financial troubles of newspapers, as I haven’t bought a paper in a great many years. I mostly get my news from online sources that don’t harass me about ad blockers or limit content, typically the CBC News website and – much as I hate to admit it – the CNN website. CNN often has annoyingly bad journalism polluted with clickbait and unimportant stories but underneath it all is fairly decent reporting and analysis, though sometimes CBC is faster and more thorough. Also the New Yorker, though now that I no longer subscribe there is a hard monthly article limit.
yes and no. I no longer subscribe to a newsprint paper, nor to news weeklies. However, I love to read the news so I do so online. Sadly, most news weeklies have had to switch to a “latest news” format to remain competitive so those are the ones that are losing my attention. But in order to get the "real’ news, a weekly format is better because a story is given some time to develop and writers have a chance to verify facts before publishing. The way stories are updated hourly these days drives me nuts. The first one out with a story pretty much never has a very complete story. I’d rather wait. Political stuff especially.
I do have subscriptions to a couple of news organizations, and I do a lot of hunting around to check the veracity of a news source/story if I suspect a slant or see shoddy writing.
This could have been my story (started subscribing mid 80s; commute into Chicago; read on the train…) Now with COVID, I’ve changed my habits a little bit. Still subscribe; now I read my paper at home before I turn on the computer for work.
The Trib does have an on-line version (besides the website and various articles and breaking news there), but it just doesn’t work for a few reasons. First of all, if you’re on the train trying to read online, you go through a few dead spots, one of which is at a station, so you’re there for a couple of minutes with no update. Second, their programming sucks. Lots of problems with page numbers, sections, and links to full articles.
My wife complained she could no longer read the newspaper and had switched to reading online where she could magnify the type. I canceled the daily paper but kept the Sunday edition, because reading the paper and watching CBS Sunday Morning is the fixed point around which my week revolves.
My father has a daily dead-tree Murdoch habit. The funny thing is he’s quite intellectual and lefty, but he’s been reading the same paper daily for about fifty years and has followed it through its long downhill slide from being quite a respectable broadsheet to trivial little tabloid rag, and he won’t stop.
We have a good natured argument semi-regularly where he says grumpy things about Murdoch and then I say “so why the hell do you keep supporting him by buying his newspapers!”
So now to provide a counterweight, I buy him a paper subscription to the Guardian weekly as his Xmas gift each year. It’s quite expensive to buy the paper version, and it’s only weekly where the online version is daily - but he won’t read it online.
I did keep a digital subscription to the Tribune, but I admit, I don’t read it very often, for some of the reasons you note, as well as the fact that a number of their longtime columnists departed a few months ago, after the paper was sold.
I also have digital-only subscriptions to the Washington Post, as well as to the Green Bay Press-Gazette (for Packers news, plus just to keep in touch with what is happening in my home town); I read both of those on a daily basis.
I still get the Times and the local Montreal Gazette. I guess I could go online only, but the Times at least, does not publish the full paper.
But I live in a condo with 54 units and there are only three subscriptions to the Gazette, none to any French paper and I am the only subscriber to the Times. Both of my sons subscribe to their local newspaper and the Sunday Times. My daughter subscribes only to the weekend Times.
I often buy the Saturday edition of The Guardian, as it comes will all the extra magazines and supplements. Also its Sunday-sister paper The Observer. Not religously though.
I occasionally buy the Sunday Times to keep an eye on the opposition. It makes me feel a bit dirty though.
I bought and read a printed newspaper every day for 20+ years until about 10 years ago. A few days ago, I passed a stationer’s and considered buying one, just for old times’ sake.
Before that, I used to enjoy The Reader, which is pretty much why I’m here (Cecil’s column). It was way too much for me to read all the way through, but I’d feel smarter just having it lying around the apartment.
Yeah, I too am old. I have a paper subscription for Mon-Sat. to the local rag (no longer bother with the Sunday paper), a digital subscription to WaPo and occasionally a digital to the NYT (but not currently).
It’s semi-ritualistic for me. I used to like to read the paper one over breakfast or lunch, now I read it at work. Including saving up copies on my days off to take in. Another old guy at work likes that I supply him with paper crossword puzzles.
We used to have a daily paper newspaper, but a few years ago the newspaper started to arrive too late every day (after we had left for work), so we switched to a saturday only paper, while having a digital subscription for during the week. I still prefer reading actual paper.
My wife’s job has a relationship with the local newspaper, so we get a deep discount on the Sunday/holiday edition. I like to have it around for the kids to read over breakfast, just to keep them in the habit of touching paper every now and then. I also notice that I run across stories that escape my digital skimming net for whatever reason… it’s good to stay abreast of what’s happening in boomer-land.