Nipping at the heels of newspapers

Washington Times ^ | 11/29/02 | Lisa Singhania, AP

[kattracks]

NEW YORK --Five days a week, Tim Nekritz sits down with a cup of coffee and checks the latest news on his computer screen.

Although he grew up reading the newspaper, he usually finds the Internet a more efficient way to stay current.

[mrustow]

There might also be some obstacles beyond their control, including the changing habits of would-be readers. With busy schedules and long commutes, fewer Americans are finding the time to sit down with a newspaper — and with so many other information sources, they don't need to.

"I read the paper maybe once or twice a week," said Cindy Wei, 30, a zoology graduate student in Lansing who usually ends up watching the nightly news while she cooks dinner. "I prefer to read the paper, but it's hard to find the time."

What a crock. Are we supposed to believe that people are busier now than they were fifty or sixty years ago? In 1950, NYC had at least 11 daily newspapers (it now has four), and millions of New Yorkers read a morning AND an evening paper. As for "long commutes," just the other day I read that most Americans do not face long drives to work.

It's laziness, stupid! Americans are used to getting spoonfed their TV news, while they sit in their high chair. Conversely, a newspaper is "self-service"; it requires some initiative on the reader's part.

[Nick Danger]

In recent years it seemed to me that the newspapers I was reading had become a daily compendium of the previous day's bummers... from all over the world. Today it's tribes hacking each other to pieces in Africa, a ferry boat sinking with 700 aboard in Sri Lanka, creeps molesting little kids... tomorrow it's a bank robbery, and a tractor-trailer overturning, and unkillable flesh-eating bacteria in the schools.

I just got tired of it. I had the sense that it was driving me insane... that my head was being pumped full of more horrors every day than a human being was designed to absorb in a lifetime.

Do I really need to know about every bummer that happens every day, anywhere in the world? Why do I need to know that? To Hell with that. It's life-robbing to fill your head with that crap. I can't do anything about it anyway.

To that was added the constant blare of the liberal trumpets. If it wasn't the feminists demonizing me for being alive while male, it was the tree-huggers calling me an Earth-destroyer for not recycling my plastic containers. I got tired of that crap, too.

So I stopped reading them. And I don't miss it, and I won't be back.

One thing I like about FR is that a huge fraction of the news traffic is something I either can do something about, or need to know to make intelligent decisions. There is very little "crime news" of the sort that is just depressing... another liquor store knocked off, another middle-aged father of 3 found in a pool of blood on the floor. I never understood why newspapers thought that stuff was so damned important.

[monkeyshine]

RedEye and Red Streak

For stoners and commies, respectively.

[L`enn]

In 1984 I used to buy the two Syracuse papers, plus 2-3 times a week the NY Post of Daily News. I think in 2002 I have bought 3 newspapers. Why? The Internet.

[ninonitti]

why newspapers thought that stuff was so damned important.

If it bleeds it leads journalism has been the "norm" forever.

I've found myself increasingly turned off by the lamestream press and stopped reading print versions of newpapers almost entirely.

I am always amazed at the amount of "news" that is simply police reports, press releases or independent studies cut and pasted under a "reporters" byline that finds it's way into print. I used to believe the ad revenues of a paper would support someone actually going outside every now and then to find out what was going on in town...I'm not so sure now.

My distaste for the liberal tilt of most print news has alot to do with me looking to the net for my news but alot of it involves just lousy editing and writing. I don't mind hearing another point of view if it's intelligent but more often than not it's shrill and hostile.

Forget about teevee news.

[Brandybux]

Some months ago, we cancelled our subscription to the Dallas Morning News. For months before that, I'd noticed that everything printed in its first section had already been "printed" (and read by me) in the previous day's online news.

Why keep the Snooze? Well, I enjoyed the bridge column. And three comics.

Then I decided that these features, as pleasant as they are, do not justify the cost of the subscription. End of subscription.

News (and different sorts of features) are widely and cheaply available on the net. No more papers for me, thank you very much.

[AD from SpringBay]

Use the internet and save a tree.

[SamAdams76]

It is only a matter of time before newspapers go the way of the old news film reels we used to see in movie theatres. Those news reels were once indispensable because even though they were often several weeks behind, they brought the news that people heard about on the radio or in newspapers to life in film. They became obsolete when television came along, because people could then get their "news reels" much quicker.

I still read newspapers every day but it is now mostly for columns and opinion rather than news. For when I get my copy of the Boston Herald each morning, most of it is already "old news" to me because I had digested it the night before on the Internet, so I just go straight to the op-ed page or the sports section. Newspapers have already lost much of their immediacy so they are no longer a source for current news but useful only for analysis and opinion of news that has already occurred. There will still be a need for that analysis and opinion but I feel that over the next 10-20 years the printed editions will be phased out in favor of online editions (for a nominal subscription fee). By then, virtually everybody will have the Internet at their disposal at anytime, anywhere, on fold-out screens that are kept in their pockets.

[OldPossum]

My distaste for the liberal tilt of most print news has alot to do with me looking to the net for my news but alot of it involves just lousy editing and writing. I don't mind hearing another point of view if it's intelligent but more often than not it's shrill and hostile.

"Most print news" is a bit of an understatement. With the exception of perhaps only The New York Post and The Washington Times, there are no newspapers in this country that try to keep their opinions out of the news stories. There are only liberal rags who tint their news coverage. Someone once said of The Washington Post's articles, if you haven't found the slant, read the last paragraph or last sentence, it's invariably there.

As for TV news, if you are referring to ABC, NBC, and CBS, I wouldn't waste the electricity. Besides, the doctor tells me I have low blood pressure. Why disturb a good thing?

[slimer]

With the internet, getting today's news paper is like reading yesterday's news.

[foreverfree]

bump

[#3Fan]

Good rant. You're right. I never realized how dumb half the stuff they print is but it is.

[CIB-173RDABN]

Newspapers lost their way when then went from reporting facts to advocates.

[mrustow]

---

To: mrustow

In recent years it seemed to me that the newspapers I was reading had become a daily compendium of the previous day's bummers... from all over the world. Today it's tribes hacking each other to pieces in Africa, a ferry boat sinking with 700 aboard in Sri Lanka, creeps molesting little kids... tomorrow it's a bank robbery, and a tractor-trailer overturning, and unkillable flesh-eating bacteria in the schools.

I just got tired of it. I had the sense that it was driving me insane... that my head was being pumped full of more horrors every day than a human being was designed to absorb in a lifetime.

Do I really need to know about every bummer that happens every day, anywhere in the world? Why do I need to know that? To Hell with that. It's life-robbing to fill your head with that crap. I can't do anything about it anyway.

To that was added the constant blare of the liberal trumpets. If it wasn't the feminists demonizing me for being alive while male, it was the tree-huggers calling me an Earth-destroyer for not recycling my plastic containers. I got tired of that crap, too.

So I stopped reading them. And I don't miss it, and I won't be back.

One thing I like about FR is that a huge fraction of the news traffic is something I either can do something about, or need to know to make intelligent decisions. There is very little "crime news" of the sort that is just depressing... another liquor store knocked off, another middle-aged father of 3 found in a pool of blood on the floor. I never understood why newspapers thought that stuff was so damned important.

3 posted on 11/30/2002 0:41 AM PST by Nick Danger
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Tragedy overload. It's the result of the information available in a world of six billion people, plus the gruesome and helplessness factors. For political reasons, many newspapers refuse to publish stories of people triumphing over adversity and violence through grit.

In many a newspaper, the police blotter is the most popular feature. Since I'm a newsaholic with a voracious appetite for information, this is all gravy for me. The problem is, that many of the same newspapers that live off violent crimes, won't run stories on the people who have successfully defend themselves from violent attacks.

I also have to constantly remind myself, that it's a big country within a big world.