Black and White and Read All Over

I love this cartoon because it shows so perfectly why I still read a newspaper.  I can take it anywhere with me, including the bathroom for an extended visit.  I don't like this trend of newspapers failing, for people to stop reading them, for getting news from the computer or solely from the television.  I can't do it.  I've tried.  I have the NY Times sending me their news every day on my computer.  I look at the titles of the articles and of the OpEd and I end up choosing only one or two articles or editorials to read, if I read any at all.  I read the titles and then I think, oh, whatever, I don't have time to read that right now, I'm tired of being on this computer.  I have better things to do.

I don't feel that way about an actual newspaper.  I get the USA Today, because the Kitsap Sun wasn't serious enough and didn't have enough national news and not much content of any kind anymore.  My son has argued that the USA Today is the "worst paper" in the nation.  Maybe he's right, though he really doesn't have a leg to stand on because he reads no newspapers at all.  And I find that USA T. has lots of content.  I like the visuals, the graphs, the results of polls, the extensive national/international news.  Certainly it's not as serious or intellectual as the NY Times, but I truly don't have time to read a paper as big as that, and I'd want to read it all.  There'd be no time to clean the kitchen floor or do the laundry or to take a walk.  Wouldn't be able to accomplish anything--would have to read my Times.  Even with the smaller paper I get I end up having a pile of 2 or 3 of them that I haven't finished yet.

I like to hold a newspaper in my hand, I like to put it down and come back to it. I like to cut out an article and send it to a friend.  We used to like to get articles from my husband's Dad--sometimes we weren't sure why he sent them but they were still a nice way of communicating.  I don't even mind the black ink on my fingers.  I feel the same about books.  I want to turn pages, dog-ear them if there's something good on that page, loan them to people if I love them.  I'm not going to read them again, and most I will give away or take to the used book store for credit, but I like the heft of a book in my hand. I like the cover art and the accolades listed on the back.  My daughter has a Kindle--it's fascinating technology but I can't do it.  Don't want to do it--won't.  

Are people like me going to die off?  Is the hard-cover book business, the paper newspaper, going to go away some day as younger people get more and more used to getting their news from tiny little screens, by Twitters, by Facebooks, by Googles?  What kind of news will it be?  Will there be content or will it end up being just one-liners?  US Freighter Boarded by Pirates Today!  North Korea Launches Missile! Bank fails!  Taxes Increase!  Obama's Get Dog!  No whys or wherefores, just headlines.  No Woodwards or Bersteins doing investigative reporting, maybe an Ask Jesse on the news, but will it be enough to stay informed?

My husband has recently stopped taking the Kitsap Sun and reads it online now.  It works for him because he's always been a "headline" guy.  He can rip through a paper in 5 minutes.  If something grabs his attention he may read further, but usually not.  He watches the news and stays up on things, even arguing with what he hears there.  But because I read whole articles and editorials I know much more about what he has read in a headline and if I want to argue a point I have something to back me up.  I miss the Sun only because I can't get the Sunday Crossword anymore.  Do it online you may say, but no can do!  I have to have that page in my hand, and that pencil and I have to be able to pick it up and put it down and pick it up again. I've taken to begging my Mom for her copy because, sadly, the USA Today's crossword is pathetic.

I have to admit to not knowing much about what is going on in my own town and county anymore, but the Sun wasn't helping me out in that area much anyway (and the CK Journal is helpful for that and it's free!).  I could see that people were being murdered, that there were house fires, car accidents, domestic abuse, drug raids--as has been said, "What bleeds, leads", but it was more "scare news" than anything else.  The TV news is much of the same.  I want reporting that causes me to ask myself how I feel about that, what I think.  I don't want to be shocked over and over.  I want to muse on things.  If I want to know how Thomas Friedman is viewing the world or what Paul Klugman is thinking about the economy I can go to NY Times online, but in the meantime I'll stick with my USA Today, keep stealing my Mom's Sunday NY Times crossword from her Sun, and rely on Ralph to email me with any notices of alumni deaths.  I'll keep reading my news on paper as long as I'm allowed and my books, too.  I'll probably be part of a dying breed, but I'm going to hold out until the last.  And keep washing the printer's ink off my fingers.