Have you stopped reading newspapers? How has that changed your habits?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I gave up my paper about 6 months ago, when they stopped giving me half-off for a yearly subscription and instead wanted more than newsstand price.

I used to start every single morning on the patio, summer and winter, reading the news, comics, doing the puzzles…
Now I’m never on my patio. So I miss that. I tell myself I should just read books out there in the morning instead of at night on the sofa, but haven’t yet.

And I never look at some news I used to read. I would always be drawn in to whatever was there, the letters and opinion pages, the book and movie reviews, might even skim a paragraph on cooking, because the picture looked good, despite my cooking skills peaking at frozen pizza. Now I never click on those links, and can’t recall why I would ever spend any time on those topics.

Another change of course is that I have to scrounge the neighbor’s recycling if I need old newspaper for spreading under a painting project.

2

Absolutely not. I can’t get through the day without my morning newspaper fix. My first job was on a newspaper, and perhaps that is part of it, but no TV newscast can come close to covering all the stories worldwide I get in my morning paper, as bad as it is. A bad newspaper is better than none at all. :smiley:

I do also check news headlines on the computer now and then, but I really like to read about what is going on. And, of course, there are the comics.

If you will watch the 30-minute network evening news and use a stopwatch, you will find you are fortunate if you get even 20 minutes of news. I have counted several times, and it averges around eight to ten stories.

3

I quit about the time that news.google.com came online.

I probably read more newspapers now than when I had to go to the public library.

4

I won’t stop reading newpapers until they stop printing them.

The first thing I do is pour a cup of coffee and read the paper. When the paper is late, I’m lost. I get on the computer instead, but it’s not the same.

5

While I love the written word, I’ve always hated reading the newspaper. My fingers turn black, I get black streaks on my arms, legs if I’m wearing shorts, and end up with streaks on my face from my black fingers if I’m not careful.

I was elated with the internet when newspapers started publishing there, and I get nearly all the same content, but without black smudgies everywhere. I enjoy the Reader online, the Trib, Sun-Times, New York Times, and MSN, CNN.

I almost never watch the 30-minute newscast, either. It’s usually crap and somebody got killed somewhere nearby.

I definitely appreciate the time spent on the patio, however, and can see how you would miss that a lot, Brainiac, and I can see how just reading a book out there to start the day wouldn’t be the same. Doing puzzles and reading the comics are more of a brain warm-up for the day, where reading a book is more intensive. I’m afraid I’m not coming up with a suggestion for a substitute. I think my solution would be to use a web-enabled cell phone out there to start the day with a nice cuppa coffee. If you have one, maybe try that?

6

Oh, yeah, Braiiac, another idea is to buy the Amazon Kindle. You can wirelessly download any of a large selection of newspapers to it daily (as well as read tons of books too, of course). It also has a bunch of magazines available.

As it is an eInk screen and is not backlighted, it works fine even in direct sunlight without washing out. Perfect for patio reading.

7

I have not stopped - I never read newspapers.

8

Well, I’ve been getting the morning newspaper for decades and it’s hardly worth it any more. Once I set aside any advertising circulars and the sports section, I’m left with two slim sections, one is news/editorials and the other is ‘Living’/comics/classifieds. Takes me less than 10 minutes to read both sections. Even the Sunday paper is smaller. But if the newspaper doesn’t show up out there in the box, I am P.O.'d for the rest of the day. Force of habit, I guess.

9

I don’t read them as often as I used to. I used to read everyday, now it’s more like once a week.

10

I’ve pretty much stopped doing crossword puzzles.

11

I used to get both Denver dailies. It would take me two hours to read all of the weekday articles. So I rarely got through everything. But there was a wealth of information. And I learned a great deal every day. Great times.

Now less than 10 years later one paper is gone and the other has reduced from 6 sections to 3 and they are significantly slimmer. I can now read the entire thing in about 20 minutes. But despite the fact that it is a third the size, they now charge three times what I used to pay for both papers (actually far more than that because they used to have subscription deals). Heck the price has gone up 50% in the last six months or so since the News folded. And 95% of the material is AP reprints I can usually find in greater length online for free. Local reporting has fallen to TV news levels of depth and quality.

So sorry Denver Post but away you go. It pains me to see you limping toward your demise. But frankly you offer nothing of value any longer.

12

I canceled our subscription and signed up for the e-version of our paper ($5/month and you can see the entire paper online, including puzzles). I used to sit and read the entire paper every morning with my coffee. On Sundays, I would savor the extras, especially the expanded editorial page and the puzzle page. Now, the only thing I do is print out the puzzles every Sunday and do them. I don’t even glance at the rest of it. I read a lot of online news, but I’ve become completely oblivious to our local stuff. And, the puzzles aren’t really as satisfying because the paper is different and the Sudoku prints out too big. Bah.

13

I mostly stopped reading the paper years ago when I realized that most of it was stuff I’d read on the internet the day before. Nowadays there’s 2 local-interest columns, a cooking column, a sports column and one editorial. Everything else is syndicated. I miss leisurely pouring over the newspaper but there’s just nothing fresh there any more.

14

I haven’t regularly read a physical newspaper since 2001. That was when my (then) college roommate canceled his subscription to the New York Times.

I was sad, it’s a good paper. I still visit the website though probably 2-3 times a day, so it all works out.

15

I stopped reading them about two years ago- not for price considerations but simply the quality was so dreadful. Mistakes a pre schooler shouldn’t make plus there started to be so much crap in there - more the stuff for gossip magazines. I do miss the sporting sections.

16

I still have a Sunday-only subscription, but I will discontinue that in a few months when the current pre-paid subscription expires. I won’t miss it since every article I’d want to read is available online. I will, however, miss the Sunday crossword in the paper. Yes, I can do it online, but it’s just not the same.

17

I had to look around a lot to find decent online crossword and jumble puzzles. I still haven’t found the cryptoquote decoding puzzle I used to do every morning. Doesn’t lend itself to online solving, but it would still be good printed out.

This one has the NY Times puzzles for free, not paid like on their page, and also Sudoku LA Times Games Section

This is another good crossword (at the bottom of the page), and there’s a Sudoku as well, but I’ve never tried it. SF Gate

Jumble

18

I used to read at least 15 papers a day, usually much more (granted, this was for work). Since I lost my job, I’ve become pretty disconnected from current events except for the Daily Show.

19

Many moons ago I used to read the local papers (Tribune and Journal) regularly but I rarely do any more. The Tribune in fact folded a couple years back but I had stopped reading it long before–it seemed to be nothing but a few news soundbites and endless empty headed chatter from columnists who appeared to be writing for 3rd graders. TheJournal actually has some news in it (nothing I couldn’t find online on Google News or the NYT though) but also contains more than its share of fluff and filler articles on non-existent social trends, flaky dietary fads, and local “characters” who are about as interesting as a cinder block. It’s also a bit too conservative for my tastes. I don’t know that not reading them has greatly changed my habits.

I used to read the “World” papers (the tabloid Weekly World News and Workers of the World or whatever the communist paper is called) just for laughs but I haven’t done that in a while. I guess I just found other things to laugh at.

20

In Oregon we have The Oregonian, and it’s just dreadful. I haven’t subscribed in 13 years. Every once in a while I read it at work, and it’s so bad.

I love the NY Times. I read it online every day. I read Slate, too, although not as regularly. We have some local independents I read online.

I hate “paper” papers. I’m not a raging environmentalist, but, geez…the amount of paper that will be saved from just stopping newspapers alone will amount to significant savings. I also hated the ink, and I hated recycling them…they piled up fast.

I love the efficiency of reading news online. I also like reading comments to get other perspectives. Someone noted not watching the evening news…same here. What a waste of time.

I do crosswords online. I’m not good enough for the Times crossword, so I do the MSNBC one. I think it’s Universal. It’s about the level of difficulty of crosswords you find on comics pages.

Two habits I can’t see giving up: listening to radio (esp NPR for news) and reading The New Yorker (paper version).