The Death of Newspapers

[Tab]

I was always an inveterate reader of newspapers.

But now I get my comics online, my crossword online, and my news updated to the second.

Whereas I used to buy a paper every day (actually had it delivered), now I never get one.

As a former publisher of a technical journal, I know the costs in printing and delivering something.

One day, these are all going to go away, unless it's something generic and general, like USA Today.

Price of progress, I guess. Sad to see it happen, though.

[aquart]

1. I stopped buying when I caught them lying.

[shanti]

2. technology

:shrug: like you, i always got the sunday paper, and relished it. i get most of my news now from DU, my ISP, and my local (online) newspaper. change moves so quickly now it seems, or maybe i'm just getting older ;)

[EFerrari]

3. I know. As much as I rag about the media, it's very sad to me.

:(

[Median Democrat]

4. Part of It Is The Ascendance of the AP

Newspapers are looking more and more the same. Also, the mergers are killing papers. I am about to cancel the LA Times, because it was bought by the Chicago Tribune, and now displays the same conservative political bent, then they got rid of the California and Local sections. So, I have a subscription to the LA Times, but I get the Chicago Tribune in essense. I might as well cancel, and get the NY Times, which is the out of town paper I'd choose, and some other local newspaper that is actually local. It is pretty pathetic how far the LA Times has fallen in such a short period of time.

[madokie]

15. Back during the nixonian watergate years

We knew we could trust that if it was an ap story it was more than likely bad infomation. Damn near 40 years later and its still the same, maybe even a little worst now, if thats possible.

[Tab]

5. My wife was a journalist

a reporter for a (relatively) small newspaper, but it was obvious, even in that market, that things were going south.

[Raine]

6. My local paper is a RW rag but I still feel sad

that it's in trouble even though they brought it on themselvs. It's coming to the end of an era for newspapers. :-(

[silverojo]

7. I'm amazed it's taken so long for it to happen

I never could understand why people would continue subscribing to newspapers, when they were available online.

[Urban Prairie]

8. I stopped delivery of my newspaper

When I upgraded from dial-up to broadband, I had to cut some of the higher cost down, so the newspaper went first, the telephone landline second, although I still had the latter when the Great Power Failure of 08/03 happened in the NE/Midwest.

My newspaper carrier apparently was quite pissed when I discontinued the newspaper. I received calls for a few evenings immediately afterward, with dead silence on the other end when I answered the phone. Caller ID was blocked, and I rarely got calls from anyone, since I had an unlisted number, and everyone I knew called me on my cellphone. The newspaper was one of the few businesses that I gave my landline telephone number to when I first subscribed to it.

[Kolesar]

9. America is going to be left with TV news channels and Time Warner's selected news

...as presented on their home page portals. Newspaper writing was far better than anything on broadcast TV or on the TV news channels (CNN, etc.). Newspapers actually had a process of editing and fact checking. TV news is just sensationalism with an evil penchant for fear mongering. Cheney/bush were especially able to exploit the weaknesses of TV news.

[Squatch]

10. I wonder if people were saying the same thing thousands of years ago

when they made the transition from stone tablets to papyrus. The stone tablet industry must have gone through similar death throes.

[Deja Q]

11. Why support sensationalism and populism when they offshore half the jobs in the first place?

If the US economy goes under, the working class will still be blamed - we're being blamed for everything else... often wrongly. Sometimes there are grains of truth, but they are blown well out of proportion.

[michreject]

12. Have you found the NY Times crossword online? nt

[NJCher]

13. It's so bad...

that college students don't even know what a "letter to the editor" is.

One day in class I remarked that the letters to editor section of the paper was one of the most read sections and they didn't even know what I was talking about.


Cher

[madokie]

14. Theres an article in our local paper, Tulsa World

about this this morning, I didn't read it. We have two papers delivered and have for years but soon I see us dropping the tulsa world because they are chock full of rightwing idealogues spouting their form of mis-information. I gave up on making a difference on that one so the next step is to drop it totally. I learned to read reading the funnies in the tulsa world newspaper back in the early '50s. I get all my other than real local news from the internet tubes now and have been for several years. Out of habit we continue to have them delivered but as I said it's not for much longer.