Newspapers — A Quick Question

By Kables

1 Aug

Hey kids. Some help for a school project. Please?

Do any of you read a print newspaper anymore? Have you let your subscription(s) lapse? If not, why not? If you still do subscribe, why? Do any of you look at classifieds in the paper? Or do you look at the classifieds online? What are your thoughts–is newsprint going the way of the dinosaur?

The evidence shows that print subscriptions are in decline and that the internet is/has supplanted print, so that’s not really up for debate. I’m just trying to get some qualitative opinion on the matter–why is this happening?

Filed under: Books and Magazines, Economics

23 Responses for "Newspapers — A Quick Question"

Zandra August 1st, 2006 at 11:31 am 1
I sometimes glance at the print newspaper if it is around. For the most part I read my news online. It is easier and updated quickly. I think in this day in age we want things, be it news, fast.
D M August 1st, 2006 at 11:35 am 2
Since most newpaper articles are short, I can read them at work, and I don’t have to pay for anything.

Looking through classifieds, however, is a different animal (for me), and I prefer to have something physical I can look at, because it’s not as tiresome on my eyes. [This held true, at least, when I was looking for my last job. It may not be true anymore]

Longer stories, I still prefer to print out and read. It’s easier for me to focus, because the act of reading isn’t as tiring. I really do enjoy reading, and I think that for stories with more nuance magazines and whatever newsprint becomes will still be vaulable. But for the basic updates, the easy local news and happenings, the internet really has me locked in as my source for information.
Brenda August 1st, 2006 at 12:07 pm 3
In my ideal life, I wake up every Sunday AM and fetch the Sunday New York Times from my front porch and spend a leisurely few hours reading it. I have subscribed to the Sunday New York Times several times — always hoping and dreaming that this scenario will happen. Instead I get stacks of Sunday New York Times that sit in a pile near the door. Neglected. I am just too busy.

I glance at the New York Times online several times per week. I glance at the Washington Post online once per week. I look at my local newspaper’s online site once per day (I also look at the print version now and then — we subscribe to it at work). I look at the KC Star online once per week. I check the CNN.com website a few times per week. I am subsribed to Daily Kos and Happy News and Daily Kos w/Bloglines and scan those regularly. I have a Hotmail email account, so when I check my email, I sometimes am distracted away by a news bit from MSN News.

I listen to NPR daily and consider it my primary news source. It’s more flexible and fits into my life more easily. I never watch local TV news (I will watch CNN or a PBS news show now and then).

Also, one more random thought, aesthetically, I just don’t like newsprint. It’s messy. I know that sounds persnickety, but there’s no physical appeal for me. The thought of wet newspaper grosses me out.
Kerry G. August 1st, 2006 at 12:29 pm 4
I subscribed to the Sunday Bellingham Herald for awhile, but found that I just wasn’t reading that much of it, so I quit a few years back. The only time I pick up and read the print version is when I’m on vacation with my parents. They always buy it.
Mrar August 1st, 2006 at 12:48 pm 5
I have never subscribed to a newspaper. I’ll read it, gladly, if it’s laying around a coffee shop, airport, or salon. Whenever I walk by newspaper boxes I always check the headlines. As a metro bus rider, I get all my news while listening to NPR through my mp3 player.
Kables August 1st, 2006 at 12:56 pm 6
Where do you go to read? Bellingham Herald? Seattle Times? Google News?
Chris August 1st, 2006 at 12:59 pm 7
Classifieds are still great when looking for apartments. I look at newspapers whenever I’m in a coffee shop by myself, but I rarely buy. Mostly I get my news through blogs, CNN.com and ABC.com.
Kables August 1st, 2006 at 1:01 pm 8
“It’s messy.”

I’ve heard that from others as well. Thanks for the thoughtful response, yo.
Kables August 1st, 2006 at 1:01 pm 9
I wonder if there’s a generation gap regarding newspapers? I wonder what the demographic breakdown is — do old people still subscribe (no offense, Suegee).
Kables August 1st, 2006 at 1:04 pm 10
What about Craig’s List? Is it better than the local paper?
Kables August 1st, 2006 at 1:05 pm 11
Mrar, do you download podcasts, or does your MP3 player have a tuner? And why won’t you subscribe — it is a convenience thing? Or a cost thing?
Kerry G. August 1st, 2006 at 1:08 pm 12
There could be. My parents get the newspaper at home every day and they have high-speed internet where they can read the news. They usually read over breakfast at the dining room table. One reason they pick it up on vacation is that none of us has a laptop w/wifi. Most technology is left behind on our family vacations.

Mom, what do you think? (P.S. You’re not old.)
Chris August 1st, 2006 at 1:27 pm 13
I can’t carry Craig’s List around with me when I’m looking at apartments, since I don’t have a Blackberry or a web enabled cell phone. And the list you get from Craig’s just shows summary info. To get the full ad I’d have to go into every listing and print it out separately. I’ll definitely use CL next time I look for an apartment, but I’ll also get a paper. I like having a lot of condensed, abbreviated listings on one or two pages. Plus, I have a feeling that there are still some people who don’t want to deal with the Internet, or who haven’t heard of Craig’s List, so their listings are only in the newspaper.
The Goat August 1st, 2006 at 2:17 pm 14
I never read the paper unless I can’t get online.. Other than that, print is dead.
Kables August 1st, 2006 at 2:26 pm 15
Why not, yo? Price? Convenience? Dirty-ass newsprint? What?
toftie August 1st, 2006 at 4:01 pm 16
I used to love going through the paper when I was a kid because it made me feel grown up. And there was something satisfying about the physical part of FINISHING a paper, whereas the internet is endless.

BUT, I do not nor ever have subscribed to a paper because I hate the way it feels on my hands (like nails on a chalkboard) and I never get around to reading it and then it is such a waste of paper. I feel guilty seeing all that paper all over my parent’s place.

I go online for news. Classifieds? Like them much better online because you can refine your search and then print it out. Or even copy and paste the listings if apartment or house hunting into a spreadsheet or map program. It’s swank. Far more user friendly than folding a paper around a bunch of listings you have circled on numerous pages. What a mess.

Although, I miss the clipping news stories and comics to put in the mail or on the fridge or in a scrapbook. Printing it off the internet doesn’t have the same sentimental feel. My parents still send me clippings. I love it. Feels like I’m getting something from the past sent to me.
A.Ho August 1st, 2006 at 7:06 pm 17
I like newspaper. I like just being able to sit down and flip through it, it’s just different and relaxing to me, compared to the internet. As much as I enjoy the internet I feel it makes me kind of tense. Lot’s of options, and as stated before endless. It’s nice to browse through a paper and read what strikes your fancy and then being done with it. There’s now sense that there’s something more in there.

That being said, I don’t subscribe. My lifestyle has never required it. As long as I’ve been interested in reading the news I’ve either had a job that subscribed to the paper, or I just found it at the coffee shop.

I currently read the local paper (daily and weekly) and the NYT at work.

I think newspapers will be around for awhile.
A.Ho August 1st, 2006 at 7:09 pm 18
Also, I don’t have cable or satellite but I love The Daily Show and the Colbert Report as a news source.
MomKaren August 1st, 2006 at 7:24 pm 19
Your dad and I subscribed for years to the paper…sometimes the Columbian and sometimes the Oregonian. We even got the little Camas/Washougal Post Record for a year. We have not subscribed to a paper in over a year. And not a major one in several years. Occasionally we go get one on Sundays. We grew tired of the price continually going up and the leftover papers hanging out forever…even with the advent of recycling it was still a mess to contend with. Both of us get most of our news through the internet and intermitently from TV. I listen to NPR everyday and on occasion even your dad hits NPR…still working on him. I also pay alot of attention to what you youngsters are posting and will follow many of your links to news and opinion pieces. It keeps me in the loop and not feel to antiquated.
Brenda August 2nd, 2006 at 7:11 am 20
I agree about disliking the feel on my hands and also about missing clippings. Also, there’s something about having your picture in the newspaper that’s kind of fun (and much more exciting than having it online).

I thought of something else – when I’m visiting a city – I do like the find the local music/arts kind of newspaper — Like Seattle’s The Stranger or Mpls’s City Pages or KC’s The Pitch. I only pick up our local Lawrence version now and then, but if I’m just visiting a city, I find that those papers help me get “a feel” for things (good restaurants, good music venues, etc) — I haven’t found an online website that gives me that same sort of “feel” in one place.
Brenda August 2nd, 2006 at 7:23 am 21
One more thing… you asked about generation as a factor. I think rural/urban is also a factor. In rural areas, the newspaper is still HUGELY important. (esp because there are usually not TV news stations etc that cover those areas – the local newspaper is it).

For ex, with Craig’s List, you need to be in a major urban area before that is useful. For anything smaller, local newspapers are the only source for classifieds.
Zandra August 2nd, 2006 at 8:12 am 22
I read from Yahoo and then go from there. I’m on an email list for the Indy Star in Indiana for sports. I sometimes read the Seattle Times, USA Today. Yahoo has a local feed so you can get news from local hubs.
Susie August 3rd, 2006 at 6:13 pm 23
Funny you should ask, since I just regretfully cancelled my NY times subscription (I wanted to read it, I really did, but those papers never made it out of their blue plastic wrapper) and reduced my Seattle Times to just the Sunday paper, where I pull out the innards and read them (the comics and the coupons). Most of my news I get via my Google homepage (Reuter’s Oddly Enough is my preferred news source) or indeed, the Daily Show.