For many years I bought a newspaper every day, usually in the morning

[captain queeg]

I’d read it when I had a break, sometimes finishing it in the evening. I generally didn’t read news type magazines, just because I didn’t want to spend the money. I’d read other people’s copies when they were laying around. I kept fairly abreast of news in the US, somewhat less of international news. I never was a regular TV news viewer. But nowadays the news cycle is 24 hrs and the media has to drum up stories. They find emotional issues and beat them into the ground. I miss the old days where I was aware enough of goings on, but not pounded with “news” constantly. Sometimes I just have to take a break though it’s pretty hard to avoid a lot of stuff.

[PoliticAverse]

1. It was easy for a network to fill 1/2 hour of nightly TV news but now that it's 24 hours...

the pressure to come up with something has really lowered the bar.

And it is much too easy now for people to find a "news source" that tells them exactly what they want to hear.

Confirmation bias for all.

[tblue37]

3. And yet they ignore important news to chase shiny things and to push narratives.

[PatSeg]

22. Yes, I am amazed

that with 24 hours of news, how many stories don't get reported. If you watch enough of the news networks, it is pretty much the same news regurgitated all day. If you want more of the stories of the day, you still have to read newspapers.

[Ziggysmom]

2. I miss being the first person to pop open a crisp, morning newspaper. It was a relaxing ritual

and I'd save the crossword puzzle for after dinner each day. I still buy a Sunday newspaper, but it's just not the same anymore. I also find I need a break from the constant barrage of hyped news. It can be overwhelming.

[SergeStorms]

25. Same here.

Every day before starting work I'd sit at my desk, down two cups of coffee, do the crossword puzzles and the Jumble, and ONLY THEN could I face the day.

Now that I'm retired I no longer have that ritual, but I sort of miss it. Not the work, mind you, just the morning ritual I employed to get my brain functioning each morning.

[JHB]

28. That's pretty much the reason why I collect and post the TOONs most days

A little morning "meditation" before starting my day.

[SergeStorms]

33. And you do a very fine job of it.

We all appreciate a little humor before skating away on the thin ice of a new day.

Thanks for your daily toon posts, JHB.

[pazzyanne]

4. Amen! nt

[Sherman A1]

5. Same here

I have turned off all of the “24/7 Breaking News” Infotainment media and rely on foreign news sources along with PBS and NPR. I urge all to do the same

Drama TV is pretty worthless in my opinion.

[Arkansas Granny]

16. I watch PBS News Hour for serious discussion without sensationalism.

IMO, they do a good job of presenting both sides of an issue and don't argue with their guests.

I also appreciate that they don't air "human interest" stories to tug at your emotions.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. I subscribe to my local newspaper,

the Santa Fe New Mexican. It keeps me reasonably well informed about local issues.

I don't think there are any Santa Fe TV stations -- I don't know for sure as I don't have conventional TV. But don't think I'm some sort of elitist who never watches TV. Au contraire. I watch a decent share of TV, mainly on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. Lots more on those three than I can begin to fully watch. Sigh.

We really are in a golden age of TV. There are so very many shows, on so many platforms, that we can spend the entire day, all 24 hours, watching things. And even if you think my choices are garbage, or I think the same about you, that's not important, because there really are lots and lots and lots of things to watch.

Enjoy!

[captain queeg]

7. I believe entertainment is Americas largest industry

Taking in movies, shows, sports. The US really dominates those areas. No idea of total financial impact, but it’s a major export too.

I remember a short sci-fi story years ago. It turned out humans were the only liars in the galaxy and other societies loved the fiction we produced. Was the biggest business for earth.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

12. Alas, you are all too right.

I don't happen to own a conventional TV, which mainly means I'm not subjected to the advertising that is omnipresent and overwhelming on conventional TV.

[Klaralven]

21. Advertising is much bigger than entertainment

Revenues from advertising are much bigger than movie box office, ticket sales, etc. Don't know what is is now, but back in around '92, movie box office, in-flight revenue, pay TV, cable TV and regular TV movie revenues were about $12 billion per year, while the ad industry revenues were around $50 billion.

Back then people were all excited about how fiber to the home could be used to sell pay-per-view movies. But it was obvious that the real money would be in using broadband for advertising.

Much of entertainment is a means of gathering eyeballs for advertising.

[JI7]

8. So why don't you continue doing that now and ignore the BS TV "News" Media ?

You don't even really have to buy an actual paper but can subscribe and read articles online from different sources .

[captain queeg]

10. The two local new have an online addition. One is free but the other requires a subscrritio

But the one that requires a subscription has their front page for free. I check both of them.

[Skittles]

9. I hear you

I have always been a "news hound" but nowadays that involves inevitable exhaustion if you don't take breaks

[Ligyron]

11. Even newspapers are full of mostly fluff stories

As opposed to purely news copy. it’s always been that way. Like the variety shows of old, there’s something in them somewhere for the whole family right down to the “funny papers” for the kids.

[mnhtnbb]

13. I have the local paper, Raleigh News&Observer

delivered daily along with the Sunday NYTimes. For many years we used to get them both daily, but I couldn't keep up. Most national/international news I find online with links to stories here or on the Guardian. When a particular story needs more depth, I'll watch Chris Hayes or Rachel, or Nicolle Wallace, but after awhile I have to take a break from cable news or I get too angry.

I also have subscriptions to The New Yorker and The Atlantic.

[OldBaldy1701E]

18. Ahh... the ole Disturber

Back in the day, there were two papers... the Observer in the morning and the Raleigh Times in the afternoon. I always kind of preferred the Times, but they merged in 1989. (At least the first time I was featured in both papers, the Times did not refer to me, a performer with years of professional work and credit, as an 'amateur actor'. I. WAS. LIVID.) Of course, after the Observer 'showed its ass' and started pushing rethugs while claiming to be 'impartial' I was turned off of the paper and stopped even reading it. One wonders if those who keep wailing about the 'decline of print' are aware that you are basically cutting off your nose to spite your face when you cull your readers in this manner. Pretty sad, but the entire concept of 'news' took such a hit back in the mid-late 70s that I feel they lost their credibility to be taken seriously. Nowadays one has to literally read articles from several papers just to distill the truth of the matter.

[Native]

14. And all news is now "breaking news"

Years ago, subscribing to breaking news alerts was pretty legit, now I get a thousand text alerts a day. It's beyond ridiculous.

[Rorey]

15. Dropping down to basic cable was a very good decision

I used to watch so much "news", and also shows like Dateline, 20/20, and 48 Hours. I got turned off of shows like the latter three when one of them did a show on something that happened locally, and I realized how much they distorted the facts just with tone and emphasis, and also with omissions of pertinent facts.

I quit our local paper a lot of years ago. It used to be part of my morning routine that I really enjoyed, but then it started coming later and later, and getting smaller and smaller, and I decided to stop. It was tough getting used to my mornings without my coffee and paper, but I adjusted.

I do still go out every Sunday morning and get the paper, but it's not mine. My neighbor gets only the Sunday paper, and she has a very steep driveway. One morning I saw her going down to get it, hanging on to her railing for dear life because she has some mobility issues, so I started getting it for her and propping it up beside her door. She felt guilty about me doing it, so we had a few discussions, but I insisted because I told her if I looked out and saw that she had fallen I'd never forgive myself. She's just about the best neighbor anybody could ever want to have, so I'd like her to stick around. We've become very good friends through the years.

When I first got satellite radio in my car, I always had it on news stations, but now I listen to comedy and music. Life is much more calm without the constant bombardment of what's called news these days.

[Kid Berwyn]

17. The daily paper was a community's touchstone.

Everyone looked at — and got — the same news, facts and stories.

Now, few people read a paper every day.

Instead, the majority see and hear what they want to see and hear and disregard the rest— to the detriment of the community.

[Hortensis]

26. :) Long ago I was publicity chair for our elementary school's PTA. Just let

the local paper know of a special "event," like a Bigwheel race on the playground or a class's adoption of abandoned kittens, and a team would be there to take pictures and sprinkle an article with names of children and parents for their friends and neighbors to discover over breakfast. Among more serious stories.

Community.

[TNNurse]

19. We get the daily paper.

We watch local and national news less and less. We look for the weather.
The 24 hr coverage has become intolerable.

[NewHendoLib]

20. no TV, just the Sunday NYT here for 17 years. A spin through DU

gives me all I need to know.

[multigraincracker]

24. Yep, DU is my main source for national news.

I get two local station on my antenna and have SamsungTV. It's a free cable station with a couple hundred channels with nothing on. The only Progressive news I get is TYT, so I watch it about 1 hour a day.

The local paper here is $2.25 and only about 4 pages. I tried the online edition. Called the number for the $99/year edition and my credit card got hacked and I was getting take out food bills from NYC. I go to the local coffee shop about 3 or 4 days a week and read the paper for free with my $2 fresh brew. Without that and going to the post office for my mail, I'd be getting out a lot less.

[PJMcK]

23. We had deal at my office

I would bring The NY Times. The office manager brought the Daily News and the NY Post. The business manager brought the Wall Street Journal. We’d share them and I’d photocopy the NYT’s crossword puzzle for everyone.

Because of a new and better job, I left that firm in the mid-‘90s, about the time the internet was exploding. Once I discovered Drudge (ugh!) and news outlets went online, I stopped buying the actual papers.

I miss that but it’s less expensive and far more varied to read online.

[Hortensis]

27. When we were first married, the LA Times required a large table where

we could both work our way through its sections over breakfast, especially the leisurely Sunday edition. Five decades later in GA we still have a subscription, which my husband's reading right now on his laptop, reading out bits to me while I do the same for the Atlanta Journal or WaPo.

Incredibly more convenient, so why do I miss our big, spread-out pages getting in each others' way? At least I don't miss the black hands the print used to give us, though.

[Historic NY]

29. For more than 52 yrs we had a paper I either delivered or was delivered to my house...

I gave it up when there was less and less local news, it now was bought up by USA. Their digital platform is like all the rest, packed with bullshit clickbait infected websites. I source local stuff on the web now for other weekly platforms. Obituary's seem to be a thing of the past, I usually find out someone died weeks later.

[TlalocW]

30. I started reading the newspaper religiously

In 7th grade when I started delivering it. Everything but the sports. I want to meet Larry Sabato before he dies because I remember his being mentioned so much. In college, every day before classes I would walk off campus to the nearest gas station and get a paper. I also learned to keep my eyes on the ground because I passed a lot of frats, and drunk frat guys lose money. Found everything from a couple bucks to a 50 dollar bill in the gutter. Nowadays though, I'll peek at a newspaper in my barbershop, and I'll already have read about whatever is the top news and probably know more about it because the story has already updated at least once since it was published.

TlalocW

[Windy City Charlie]

31. Call me old school

I'm a strict "newser." While I know longer get a hard copy of my local newspaper, I still have an online subscription, which includes being able to read the e-edition of the hard copy version.

I was one who would watch CNN in the evening, which brought us straight-forward news, the Larry King Show (who let the guest answer the questions, without badgering or continuously interrupting them). And if wasn't CNN, I'd tune into their sister channel Headline News for their continuous 30-minute news blocks. So hard to find anything like that these days.

The way news is delivered and the way the audience expects things on-demand, the landscape has completely changed.

[madville]

32. I'm surprised my city newspaper is still in business

I haven’t seen anyone with a physical copy of it in years. Just looked, an annual subscription of the printed paper is almost $500 a year! I remember when almost every house had a newspaper box by the mailbox though and I always looked forward to the Sunday edition so I could browse all the store inserts and sale ads.

[brooklynite]

34. You didn't explain why you don't buy a newspaper any more.

As for cable news, there’s nothing obliging you to watch it more than you want to. I don’t tend to watch it unless there’s a breaking story, and I never watch the new personality opinion shows (regardless of network).