Saturday, December 24, 2005

Newspapers

While reading my siblings blogs the past few days, I suddenly realized that part of the world still reads newspapers. When we lived in Southern California we subscribed to the LA Times and I ritually read it every morning while drinking my coffee. Then we moved to New Mexico and we subscribed while we lived in town for the first six months, but when we moved to the East Mountains we dropped it. It was available for delivery, but we just didn't subscribe for some reason.

So for at least 20 years now we have not had regular newspaper delivery. Every once in a while we buy one if we are looking for something in the classified section, but otherwise we get all our news from the internet, radio and TV. When travelling I often get a copy of USA Today shoved under my hotel door and I look through it while trying to down that horrible coffee they put in most hotel rooms, but I find that the news is several hours old and I can find out what is really going on by checking several of the news websites or turning on the TV. I will often visit various newspaper websites as well, including the LA Times. When some story strikes a chord, I have a great research tool alread at my fingertips. (Just be sure to have your popup blocker turned on when visiting newspaper sites!)

I did a little research and learned that newspaper readership is definitely declining. I wonder how much longer the paper version will be with us?

3 comments:

  1. We get the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday LA Times only and I think we pay a dollar a week. The main reason I keep it is for the Frys ads. I rarely read the actual news because I've usually already read the news on Yahoo. I do like the opinion page(imagine that!) and the sports pages when UA has or is playing an SC team.

    I think we'll have a paper for a long time to come for those type reasons.

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  2. I read the paper daily for two reasons:

    One, it seems to carry a little more local news, opinion and letters to the editor than I can find online.

    Two, it is more relaxing for me to sit at the breakfast table with a cup of decaf and browse through the news. I guess I could use a laptop at the table and view the news websites, but reading the paper is a comfortable ritual (and it won't crash if I spill coffee on it).

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  3. I certianly hope the paper doesn't go away too soon. I hope to one day cut articles out about my sons and save them for years to come! There is something special about newspaper print, better than just printing it off the internet.

    That is my 2 cents!

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