I used to be a newspaper
junkie.
This obsession started
long before I dabbled in journalism, a career choice that ended when I
discovered managers at McDonalds made more than reporters and had much better
hours and working conditions. I used to
read three newspapers a day: Boston
Globe, Boston Herald, and Eagle-Tribune. Sometimes I would throw in USA Today or Wall Street Journal or, if I were feeling particularly eclectic, Boston Phoenix.
I read several papers not
just for the news but for the editorial bending of each. Boston
Globe is the liberal Democrat, while Boston
Herald is its political polar opposite.
Eagle-Tribune is a regional
Republican rag, and Boston Phoenix is
the crazy-ass newsprint cousin no one wants to admit to reading (though anyone
touching it not only reads it but probably writes nasty commentary in the
margins). I used to like reading all of
these because the skews of the “impartial” articles would often leave me in
stitches.
I am not a newspaper
junkie anymore. Whenever I buy the
papers now, which happens with ridiculous infrequency, it is to skim over the
articles and go directly to the puzzles. The puzzles are letting me down. The print is so small that even my best
glasses are ineffective.
I get my news from
television and the Internet now. It’s
not the same. With the TV I am held
captive to whatever story they want to report (and repeat), whereas with the
newspaper, I can skim past things that don’t interest me. It’s kind of a shame that the news broadcasts
don’t have comics or funnies, too. That
certainly would break up the constant flow of miserable news, especially on the
weekends. I kind of miss the Sunday
funnies in that regard.
For a while, my newspapers
streamed online, as well, but now they charge a fee. If I’m not going to pay the highway robbery
prices of their daily print editions, I’m certainly not going to pay the
skyrocketing prices of their online versions (which never carry the entire
stories like the ones continued many pages and sections away from the original
stories in the hard copies).
I guess I am responsible
for the demise of journalism as we once knew it. The failure of journalism doesn’t fall on
underpaid workers or undereducated writers or greedy corporations trying to
charge three dollars a day for ten cents’ worth of newsprint. It’s my fault for giving up my addiction to
the news, for deciding that living in the world beats reading about it and
solving cryptograms of other people’s wise thoughts.
Guilty as charged. Maybe you’ll see my name in the news-police
blotter. I won’t, though. I gave up newspapers.
