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Printed News

After a lifetime of newspaper subscription(s), I went cold turkey last October (2012) and cancelled all printed versions of the so-called news.

I had many reasons, and I won't bore you with them. I realize newspapers have some value. I hate to contribute to their demise. However.....

I haven't missed my morning newspaper one iota. It's actually a relief not to feel I have to get my money's worth out of reading every word. I certainly don't miss the ads or the local sports. Or the "religion" section! Or....well, I said I wouldn't bore you.

I've found that I can get all the necessary news I want via radio, TV, and particularly the internet. Headlines are enough, unless I want more information on a news item that interests me. At my age (70) and retired (from teaching science), I don't feel the necessity to "keep maximally informed". The bare facts suit me fine. Besides, most news is depressing--politics, mass killings, disasters, environmental problems, poverty, etc., etc.

Just leave me alone with my rose colored glasses.

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Comment by Tom Sarbeck on March 1, 2013 at 3:48am: I get news in small amounts from a variety of sources.

Newspapers served a purpose when they had investigative reporting. When they became a means for owners to spread their views they became, in my opinion, a waste of money and time.

For instance, the owners of one major daily seemed to want to fraternize with the city's powerful people. It never reported the misdeeds of an electric utility headquartered in the city. When that utility was in trouble with the law, as it sometimes was, the daily paper in the state capital a hundred miles away told the story.

Such newspapers earn their demise.

I now live a five-minute walk away from a small public library that has about ten national and local newspapers. I regularly read one, on the one day each week it has a Q/A computer column.

I once lived in north-central Florida, where many people referred to the big Tampa daily paper as "the fishwrap".

Comment by Earther on February 28, 2013 at 8:25pm: I don't know what to do myself with the news. If you read it you just get depressed, if you don't you don't know what is going on.

Comment by Future on February 28, 2013 at 8:59am: The internet has been the death of print media. I cancelled a subscription to the Washington Post a while back, and I can't tell you how many random calls I got from them in the following year to offer a new subscription. They would call as late as 10 pm, and they were freakishly pushy. I began telling them to please take me off of their call list, but I would get more calls as little as three days later. I liked the paper, but honestly it was too damn big to get through. At the end of the month I would have stacks of papers that I intended to finish, but would just have to toss in the recycle bin. It was environmentally irresponsible for me to have a subscription to media too voluminous for me to finish.

I also like to read the main paper from my hometown online. However, recently they instituted a limit on the number of articles you can click on per week without buying an online subscription. I don't enjoy it enough to buy it, but I guess it makes sense for them. It must be hard to keep a paper going when the internet has caused it to lose such a large chunk of the revenue stream.