Am I The Only One Who Still Loves A Newspaper?

You can wax all you want about how the newspaper is on life support. Why the 'net is sooo much of a better way to read the today's news. And how the business model of a physical newspaper is dead.

Seth Godin makes his argument that 98% of the paper will not be missed.  Adam Singer agrees with him.

I will miss papers. 

Just like the great record albums of the 60's and 70's where the artist was building an argument through a collection of 10 or 12 songs, a daily newspaper is a combination of stories, ads and editorial that present a specific frame of the day's events. The total sum of the paper makes a much more powerful statement than one or two articles hyperlinked in Google news.

Yes, it is inefficient. Yes, it's not great for the environment. Yes, no one is buying ads, but I just can't say goodbye.

Here are 8 reasons why I always want the New York Times and your hometown newspaper to be in print:

1. The paper delivered to my door every day feels like a daily gift. A dedicated team of writers and editors have packaged a way to understand the world with me in mind.
   They've done all this homework and I'm the beneficiary. The same information on the internet doesn't get me excited in the same way.
2. In its totality, my paper represents something to be conquered.  There is a satisfaction of reading and finishing the paper that is just not the same on the web.
3. I can't read a whole paper on line. In fact, the idea of it is absurd. People skim on the internet. The majority of web readers don't have the patience to read detailed articles for a long stretch of time.  Bloggers know this instinctively and find their most viral posts are ones that are a numbered list.  It's a drag to read on a lcd screen. It makes you tired. Eyestrain.  For me - relaxation is having a coffee and bagel on Saturday morning with the paper.  I could stay in that chair for four hours.
4. I'm resisting subscribing to the Times with a Kindle.  The first thing in the morning I want to touch is paper not plastic.
5. The newspaper is a window to finding your bliss. I have to thank my parents for being broke when I grew up (well maybe not but memory plays tricks on you). We didn't go out much. One of our treats was buying the Sunday NY Times on Saturday night.  I ran to the corner to get the paper. I brought it home and tore into the Arts & Leisure section (it didn't read as such a flack rag back then).  Of course with a whole night ahead, I read the other sections too (with less fervor).  I didn't skim. I read the whole thing. As a ten year old, reading the Sunday Times was a liberal arts education in itself.
6. It's portable. I can read it on the subway, at breakfast, and at night wi-fi or no wi-fi.
7. It covers my head when it rains.  Can a Kindle do that?
8. Yes, I love that everything is digital and can be searched in a nanosecond. But when I read a paper - it's an immersive experience that has been un-matched for me in the digital world.  And, yes, I am lucky to call the New York Times my home town paper.

image credit: Zarco Drinic

Comments

[Adam Singer]

@Christopher - Thanks for presenting the other side to this. I get it, you like to read the content printed - many do.

Did you read Clay Shirky's new piece? It's long but worth reading:
http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/

[Christopher Ming Ryan]

I appreciate you taking a read.

Thanks for introducing me to Clay Shirky... I love that line, "Nothing will work but everything might." So true.

That was a terrific post and I'm looking forward to his next one.

Do you think the Sulzbergers are reading him?

[Tracy]

One of my fondest memories of the first year my husband and I were together were getting the big Sunday papers and spending the entire afternoon reading them and having tea and talking about what we'd read.

Then we had kids and if you've ever tried to read the paper with a toddler, you know it's almost impossible so we stopped getting the paper and starting getting our news online.

I always figured that once the last baby was not so much a baby anymore, we'd start again.

Your post did remind me of how much I loved to read the paper as a kid, too. It just felt so deliciously grown up. I didn't just learn from the actual news (and can you imagine how many parents today would be horrified at their children reading the unadulterated news?) but things like Dear Abby, too. It was just like preparation for entering the world of adulthood.

Thanks for the great post, it brought back good memories.

[Kgraham]

I LOVE newspapers too. You very succintly summed up my love of the printed paper. I've been reading papers since I was 8, had my first letter to the editor published in high school. I grew up in a rural area and the newspaper opened up the world to me. I agree, online is just not the same. My cat likes to sit on my lap on the sections I'm not reading and read along, she can't do that when it's in a computer.

Very sad over the state of the newspaper industry, I think reading the paper opens up the world of reading to kids, whether they start with sports scores or the comics, it can lead to a love of reading books. I agree that web readers tend to skim. I can snuggle up on the couch with the dog, a blanket and a good book in my hand, I can't have that experience on line.

[Christopher Ming Ryan]

@Tracy:
Thanks for your comments. Will your kids have the same love for newspapers? My son reads the Sports page during baseball season. My daughter will glance at the Arts page. But since there is so much information available to her - I think the paper gets short shrift. Interesting update: she's developed a real love for New York Magazine. In fact, writing at that magazine (she's 12) is her new "dream job." I don't have the heart to tell her it probably won't exist.

[Christopher Ming Ryan]

@kgraham:

Thanks for your comments and memories. Definitely, the paper opens up the world of reading. I remember when my favorite part of the Sunday Times was counting the hidden "Ninas" in the Al Hirschfeld drawings.

[Tim Jahn]

Growing up, I used to always read our local paper in print and I loved it. As I started getting involved online more and more, I found information easier to find online.

I love what you say about the paper being a snapshot in time of that day. Think of the old microfilm. You could go to the library and look at a front page from a historic day. How cool was that? Is there an digital equivalent of that? I dunno...

[Christopher Ming Ryan]

Tim: Great to have you stopping by. Online sure does = easy. I was thinking about microfiche the other day as my kids are getting old enough to do "research" for a paper.

That was kind of crazy: going to the library, dusting off those periodical reference tomes to find your subject matter. It wasn't easy - but that was probably half the reason to give the assignment.

In that struggle there was a belief - the more you dug the more you found. Yeah you can do the same on-line... Somewhere deep inside, though, I can't shake this thought - sweating a little for knowledge makes it all that much more sweet.

[Patricia Fabricant]

Succinctly, I like the printed paper because I can skim the entire thing in about 20 mins. I really do page through the entire Times every morning. Often articles will grab me that I know I would never have read if I were perusing headlines on the web. And then if they are off-beat and interesting enough I'll post them on FB for my web-head friends who I know will miss them otherwise.

[Christopher Ming Ryan]

Thanks for the comment Patricia. What a great way to start the day.

[Internet Strategist]

I haven't subscribed to a newspaper in years primarily because I used to read them cover to cover and I had other priorities to focus on and also because I choose to live so far from town and so far down a gravel road that major newspapers did not want to deliver to me.

While I probably spend as many hours online as anyone could, I still love portable reading in print. Buying the Sunday paper and reading it over iced tea and a sopaipilla still seems like a genuine treat.

As a child I read first Dear Abby and Ann Landers, then the cartoons, and then everything else except the stock market pages and some sports pages.

I believe there will always be printed books - perhaps not nearly as many and for subjects that are quickly dated ebooks may be preferred. But nothing can replace holding a book in your hands while reading.

Every child should be given a book and then many books. I myself have bought books for children I don't know and some I do. I even bought washable cloth books lovingly made by someone I met at a spiritual business networking event. They reminded me of one someone gave us - probably a grandparent.

I bought one of each and sent them half way across the country to make sure my relatives' children would hopefully develop a love of books from a very young age.

A book given to a child creates a reader and without readers there will be few newspapers or magazines or books in the future. While online books are far better for searching, reading them just isn't the same.

P.S. For newspapers to survive they have to find another business model. Just because selling ads is how it has always been done doesn't mean it is the ONLY way to do it.

[Christopher Ming Ryan]

@internetstrategist

Thanks for taking the time to read the post and give a thoughtful reply.

I hope the business model isn't a micropayment for an article or two. I still clinging to the idea the the whole daily paper is an experience worth keeping.

[George Justice]

Chris-

I agree that the newspaper as paper is something that would be deeply missed. I also admit that even though I subscribe to the NY Times and two local newspapers, I often fill my recycling bags each week with a stack of largely unopened dailies. I read the Times online and on my iPod Touch.

I'm not a proponent of my own practice, though. There's nothing I'd like better than drinking a cup of coffee and relaxing with the newspaper for an hour, or even a half hour, each morning. Right now I can't do it, and what I miss are not the stories I know I want to read (happy to see those online) but the stories that I would never read unless they happen to be editorially next to those I have been looking at.

Our society is too much of a "I know what I'm looking for" kind of thing. What's wonderful about the newspaper is that it includes so much of what we didn't know we were looking for...

[Christopher Ming Ryan]

@George:

Thanks for your comment. I don't like to talk too much about "Society" because what do I know... But you're right. In the Google society we plug in a word and get a million bits of content delivered to the screen.

But sometimes you want context with your content.
Weltanschauung, baby. That's why I still read my paper.

[Mark Dykeman]

I think these are great reasons to read the print edition. Unfortunately, in a sense, they are shaped by your upbringing and, as such, they won't resonate as strongly with a generation growing up digital. I can certainly identify with them, though.

[Christopher Ming Ryan]

Thanks for reading, Mark.  My son glances at the sports section in the morning so I am hopeful the habit will go another generation!