November 7, 2010

The News











Yesterday and Today

Himself: Playing on the computer, shower, Ross, Ikea for lunch, Museum, lite dinner, movie: “Date Night,” stayed up late.

Herself: with the quilt blog too: Had a lot of fun with the kids and Lessa’s friend K buying stuff at Ross. Underwear was us. Mostly meatballs at Ikea when G left me with Lessa, Lenora went home to stage her house for a realtor and vacate, we walked once through, and I was dropped off at home to run errands, read, and make inroads in our current jigsaw. Date night was excruciatingly painful and funny at the same time as I don’t do slapstick well, and staying up late was unsuccessful as I woke at 5 old-time. I always have a lot of trouble turning my times around for daylight savings time.

My Babylonian Captivity: Chapter November 1 through November 7: Do stop in and read Tugster's experience as a human shield. He writes that, “ i was captured in kuwait (where i was teaching in the kuwaiti air force)….”

CBC News reports that USNews and World Report will be going online only. france24 states that US News and World Report, which went monthly two years ago, released a memo to its staff yesterday which was promptly leaked to a blog.

Print news media is vanishing, we all know that. I’ll miss its easy availability, it’s comfortable adaptation to our rituals, and its flexibility.

Our local newspaper, for instance went from a standard size to a tiny width. Less print ads equal less paper and vastly less content. I miss my columns, I regret finding Dear Abby deep in the Business Section, and hate seeing local content and fluff on the front page. For a long time as they reduced staff and size, they still had better content than the TV news stations. Now days, I see over my morning coffee that they offer about the same as the talking heads on my Television.

I like having a newspaper on my doorstep each morning. I like having a weekly news magazine in my mailbox each week. I like the comfort and convenience of turning pages, reading something that catches my eye, changing subjects easily with the flick of a finger. The things that used to catch my attention aren’t there anymore. Worst of all, I can’t pass on digital news to the next person to share and recycle.

The Write News tells us that 90% of new magazines fail. An article in the Sid Blog suggests that newspapers and news magazines no longer offer content that interests the readers.

I'd certainly like more content again. Content might be art reviews in Newsweek. Oh, I am sure it’s important to cover all avenues of every political façade, but where can I read about the architectural news of the week? What art trends are changing our way of seeing the world around us? Which authors have captured our imaginations? What music has widened our world view? Why have the graphic styles reverted to those of the last century?

Someone else might appreciate an article here or there on social movements, philosophical topics, or again cover religion in a way that doesn’t place conservative thought and God in the same sentence every week. Why has religion changed so much in the last few years? Why are the Mega Churches failing? Tell me; enlighten me please. I know those society pages are long gone, but the people they wrote about are still out there doing their thing. Please tell all…..no one on television or the digital world are telling me a thing.

No more US News and World Report on paper. Soon Newsweek will be going the same way as their great attempt to reinvent themselves fails. What will happen to Time…once Time/Life/AOL/Netscape falls further on its face.

I read my BBC online. I soon will be catching up with all my favorite columnists online too. I can find Dear Abby on one site, and I have to follow a parade of links to unearth Miss Manners buried deep in the Washington Post online. Who else might I want to read? Who knows, because of my damaged memory, I can’t remember.

Maybe I should just stick to reading books over my morning coffee.

13 comments:

  1. I too miss what I used to get out of a newspaper, though I have learned to find a lot of it on line. (Including Dear Abby, which our paper dropped.)

    For religion, may I suggest:
    http://www.arcamax.com/godsquad/recent

    Though it is written by a rabbi, it doesn't concentrate on Judaism. In addition, there are links on that page to other religion sites.

    There are two trends in religion that I've noticed. First is a sincere desire to understand; it may lead to dropping some parts of religion that just don't make sense. The other trend is pure laziness, and I deplore it, no matter what the religion

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  2. All the new changes to the newspaper and magazine industries have brought much good and bad. Some of them you listed. Like you, I am trying to adapt to the changes and still find material that is of good quality.

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  3. I also miss the newsprint. But I have not had a paper delivered for several years now, as the quality was so deplorable.
    The costcutting cut the important things that readers wanted. The old-fashioned folks who read newspapers don't care about SnoopDogg's newest love.
    Although I enjoy reading blogs, news online is just not as interesting as it is on paper.

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  4. I spend much of my time reading the New Yorker. It still comes weekly, cover art, architecture, books and, while not a news mag, covers most of what's happening with good analyses. (that's supposed to be plural, but Google doesn't like it). I'd like to get the NY Times but I'm not happy about all the extra recycling. I already have shopping bags full of junk mail and bags of plastic containers.

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  5. Like you I am much comforted by the newspaper on my door step each morning, that is I'm comforted until I open it and read it's contents. Then I'm disturbed.

    It will be hard for me to break the newspaper habit.

    I see Howard Fineman has gone from Newsweek to Huffington Post. Wanting to be on the cutting edge I suppose and can see the future for Newsweek.

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  6. And the editorials. Those cannot be replaced by the two sentence comments that follow an online article. It is going to bring about big changes. For instance, what on earth will I add to my compost? ;-)

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  7. And the editorials. Those cannot be replaced by the two sentence comments that follow an online article. It is going to bring about big changes. For instance, what on earth will I add to my compost? ;-)

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  8. I gave up the UT years ago. So now I am not sad.

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  9. I guess the Times, they are a changing. I love having my morning paper, but it appears a lot of newspapers are going out of business. I know my daughter and son both read the news on line.

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  10. I guess the Times, they are a changing. I love having my morning paper, but it appears a lot of newspapers are going out of business. I know my daughter and son both read the news on line.

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  11. Well, I'm depressed!

    We do subscribe to THE WEEK -- which is a wonderful news mag -- features the best of world wide news and different opinions. Never thought, though, that USNEWS & WORLD REPORT would go the way of the dinosaur.

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  12. I don't like the idea of newspapers going away at all. Makes me pout, seriously. I love the feel of paper in my hands, I love to read it, I love to think about it and go back to it. As much as I enjoy online reading, I love not online reading.

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  13. Me too. Everything you said in your essay. Well done. As much as I like 'putering, it's contributed quite a bit to the things you and I both lament!

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