When was the last time you buyed a print newspaper?
For me, it was around 2000. Every day except Sundays, I used to read the Kentucky Post, which was an edition of the Cincinnati Post, one of the big local dailies. I used to buy a copy from a vending machine. By that time, they had an online version, but I still buyed the print version, because it had articles the online edition didn't have. But I got tired of what essentially amounted to front-page editorials, so it just wasn't worth it anymore. The Post had good coverage of things like local crimes and fires, but it wasn't worth wading through the nonsense.
The Post finally went out of business in the late 2000s.
Never bought one
July 25, 2018, because the Oklahoman had a front page story about Oklahoma installing enhanced mileposts.
I bought one two days in a row this month, actually, because of the truck attack in Amqui, Quebec.
Does the one that should be sitting out in my driveway this morning count? (I'll check when it gets light)
But as for putting down cash at a newsstand - never. Putting money in a newspaper box - so long ago I can't remember when or why I did it.
I think I might have bought a dead-tree newspaper 15-20 years ago, when I needed some packing material....
I've never "buyed" anything.
Joliet Herald-News and Chicago Sun-Times delivered daily. Chicago Tribune delivered only on Sundays.
Quote from: 1995hoo on March 26, 2023, 08:11:49 AM
I've never "buyed" anything.
^This.
Can't remember the last time I bought a newspaper. Maybe during college in the late 1990s.
Growing up, I was a newspaper junkie, and we had two newspapers delivered to the house every day. Granted, these were my parents' subscriptions, but I probably heavily influenced that we had two papers and not just one delivered.
When I got my own house in 2001 I continued the same. However as they went up in price and quality and size was reduced I cut back. I still getting the Sunday Philly Inquirer delivered again as part of a online access subscription until I went with online only last year.
At $5 for a daily paper or $6 for a Sunday paper, I'm only buying one now if there's a major headline, like the local Philly team wins a major championship.
I looked at buying an honor box - those old street corner newspaper boxes of which I plopped many quarters into over the years - as a memorabilia piece recently, but was probably a few years too late to find a decent one.
Outside of a couple random one I bought at airports the last printed newspaper subscription I had was in 1998. I did read the Detroit Free Press sports section in the high school library though until I graduated high school in 2001.
Newspapers were great for getting a 'snapshot' of the news at whatever press time was.
Not so much for real-time, but we knew this.
The Denver Post has gone from being a pretty respectable paper, to mostly ads with a few stories thrown in.
Being a bit of a tightwad, I probably last bought a newspaper on September 12, 2001. I saved a handful of them (when my kids were born, or for some big news event), but it's either been "free" or a discarded copy in most other cases. I don't think I've saved one since 2011. Many hotels used to deliver a copy of the paper to your doorstep until around 2013-14, but I was declining it after my first year on the road, not finding much time to read it during mostly rushed breakfasts.
I forget how badly newsprint stinks, especially the 1-2 times a year someone actually unfurls a newspaper on an airplane. I used to deliver newspapers decades ago, and was quite used to the odor, to the point I didn't even notice it anymore.
Last newspaper was the Denver Post when I left town November 2016. Was the Rocky until it closed.
I still visit the Detroit Free Press website daily.
I used to get the Post delivered when I lived in Highland Heights, but I started buying it from a vending machine when I moved to Bellevue. It cost the same.
On Saturdays, the Post would include a huge portfolio of slick ads. This was worthless to me, as it wasn't worth the time to sort through the ads for products I'd never buy. It was also hypocritical for the Post to include these ads, because some of their editorials used the existence of some of these products as an excuse for their goofy stances.
When I was growing up, my folks had the Cincinnati Enquirer delivered each day, but then they switched to the Post every day except Sundays, when they still got the Enquirer. I think the Enquirer and the Post had a joint operating agreement through most of those years.
Quote from: Scott5114 on March 26, 2023, 02:55:42 AM
July 25, 2018, because the Oklahoman had a front page story about Oklahoma installing enhanced mileposts.
Wow,
that was a front page story?
Quote from: bandit957 on March 26, 2023, 01:12:10 AM
When was the last time you buyed a print newspaper?
The last time I
buyed bought a print newspaper was around 2010. I had subscribed to
The (Baltimore) Sun since 1981, but it got to the point of finding they were just backing up in my "to read" pile, so I just finally terminated the subscription and never looked back.
Just as easy to get my news, weather, and sports online. I still somewhat miss the comic pages, especially
Dilbert and
Zippy The Pinhead. (Yes I know you can still get comics online).
Just today, I bought the Sunday NY Times. Yes, I could read it online (and sometimes do), but I like the ability to do at least one of my daily activities that don't require a screen. Plus, the paper can be composted.
In my day, we also got the weekly Campbell County Recorder delivered. I don't remember as much about it.
Been a long time since I bought a print version of a newspaper, but I have a subscription to the online version of the Detroit Free Press.
Quote from: wanderer2575 on March 26, 2023, 02:45:44 PM
Been a long time since I bought a print version of a newspaper, but I have a subscription to the online version of the Detroit Free Press.
I don't get how people can read local news from around the country. Subscribing to like 100 local newspapers must add up. But there are ways around paywalls.
Back in January, when I had my mother over for a few days, mostly so she could do the crossword puzzle in it. Last time I bought it for myself was the weekend in January 2020 I went up to see the Wild hockey game in St. Paul. Something to read during dead time.
The last print newspaper I bought was the final print edition of the Rocky Mountain News in early 2009, mainly as a keepsake (the front cover had the address as "Cherry Creek, KT (Kansas Territory), and the year as 1859). That's right; the Rocky Mountain News was printed before Denver officially became a community. The paper fell two months short of its sesquicentennial.
Last time I can remember is 2011, for my grandpa's obituary.
When I was a child, I remember an incident where my mom asked me to go get a newspaper, and the guy selling them wouldn't give me one. I started crying and the guy got in trouble.
Quote from: formulanone on March 26, 2023, 10:46:58 AM
I forget how badly newsprint stinks, especially the 1-2 times a year someone actually unfurls a newspaper on an airplane. I used to deliver newspapers decades ago, and was quite used to the odor, to the point I didn't even notice it anymore.
The smell of it doesn't bother me, but I hate the texture of it. The way they printed the
Oklahoman in the 90s, the ink would rub off onto your hands too. That was gross.
Quote from: triplemultiplex on March 26, 2023, 01:07:28 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on March 26, 2023, 02:55:42 AM
July 25, 2018, because the Oklahoman had a front page story about Oklahoma installing enhanced mileposts.
Wow, that was a front page story?
Above the fold, even. The other front page stories were: "Rural healthcare goes remote", "Lawmakers call Ethics Commission 'rogue' agency", and "OU Foundation withdraws arena plans".
The national news at the time (all from AP) was "Trump claims in tweets Russia will favor Dems" (that aged like milk, huh?), "Panel suggests Cosby be labeled violent predator", and "Los Angeles chief says police, not gunman, fired fatal shot at market".
So it was a slow news day, I guess.
Quote from: Scott5114 on March 26, 2023, 06:29:32 PM
Above the fold, even. The other front page stories were: "Rural healthcare goes remote", "Lawmakers call Ethics Commission 'rogue' agency", and "OU Foundation withdraws arena plans".
No matter what extreme a government leans to, the ones that go to extremes never like an ethics commission. Lived this thru my own state way too often with a new saga starting up right now. Oklahoma and Massachusetts are no different...
YES newspaper texture sucks! Always feel like I have to wash my hands after touching one. I actually kinda like the smell, however.
"Doing a crossword in an actual newspaper" definitely ranks up there in bad sensory experiences for me–your hand is moving all over the paper so you're getting newsprint ink on it and touching the displeasing texture all the time, and the paper is so cheaply made that it somehow both doesn't hold graphite well and won't release it easily when you erase.
A few months ago, because I was featured in an interest piece.
I usually buy a print newspaper for a sports championship (even if the Sounders don't always get the front page like they deserve) or major transportation projects opening.
Let my daily delivery subscription to the Lexington Herald-Leader expire about eight years ago for a variety of reasons.
My office subscribes to all the weekly newspapers in our 10-county district so we can keep up with news coverage or read about local issues that may show up on our radar. That includes the two newspapers from my home county.
I only buy additional copies if for some reason one of the papers doesn't arrive in our office PO box, or if I need extra copies (such as recent obituaries for my father-in-law and my uncle).
2008, when my grandmother died, I bought a couple of copies of the paper that had her obit to send to exended family in other parts of the country.
Quote from: Scott5114 on March 26, 2023, 07:21:02 PM
"Doing a crossword in an actual newspaper" definitely ranks up there in bad sensory experiences for me–your hand is moving all over the paper so you're getting newsprint ink on it and touching the displeasing texture all the time, and the paper is so cheaply made that it somehow both doesn't hold graphite well and won't release it easily when you erase.
We get the newspaper delivered on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The Sunday crossword used to come in a "magazine" section that was printed on, well, magazine-style paper. They discontinued that last Christmas and the crossword is now in one of the regular sections. So I go online on Sunday morning and print it. I hate getting the newsprint on my hand. But I do the crossword in pen, so I have no comment on the graphite issue other than to say the pen tends to cut through the flimsier newsprint, so that's another reason I print it on regular paper.
Decades ago.
Once newspapers were like your slightly eccentric uncle. He knew the details of every ball game last night in exacting detail. He knew what there were building out on Route 37. He knew who was the sheriff, on the school board, and who was mayor, for every place around. He knew what time the movie you wanted to see was playing and where. He had a lot of funny stories (the comics). He knew what Kroger and K-Mart had on sale next week, and even could save you some money (coupons). He knew what you wanted to know about what was going on.
Only problem was that get that from him, you had to put up with his crazed political rantings.
He thought that THAT, and not his knowledge base, was why you liked him. Fact was you liked him in spite of that.
Today, all that info is available, free, on the internet, in easier forms and more detail. All he, or that is to say, it has left is the politics. And your uncle wonders why you never call any more.
I used to deliver a newspaper, the Renton Chronicle, for a few years. I hadn't noticed, but someone in gym class saw that my arms had turned purple from absorbing the ink. Maybe I should have worn gloves.
Slightly off-topic, but here are two examples I found of water-soaked, approximately one-year-old papers still for sale in their box. I wonder if anyone even bothered to collect the coins.
Issue date: August 25, 2019. Taken June 13, 2020.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52776036992_797001fc2e_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2opCZ7h)
Issue date: September 18, 2019. Taken June 22, 2020.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52776809284_63c8260bc2_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2opGWFE)
I get four every week, the local semi-daily and the Sunday edition of the major daily in Fort Worth. I enjoy opening it and turning the pages. I'm surprised by how much I enjoy reading the online version. It looks like the print edition, so it has the right feel, but the text and images are much clearer. I no longer read the Sunday comics in the print edition I get because it looks so much better online. I like the combination, reading the paper copies I get and then reading the major daily all the other days online.
The last time I buyed a newspaper was back when I speaked English.
Quote from: 1995hoo on March 26, 2023, 08:11:49 AM
I've never "buyed" anything.
Quote from: Road Hog on March 29, 2023, 01:19:52 AM
The last time I buyed a newspaper was back when I speaked English.
I'm not really sure why someone would come into a bandit thread just to criticize banditry.
Quote from: Scott5114 on March 29, 2023, 04:29:19 AM
Quote from: 1995hoo on March 26, 2023, 08:11:49 AM
I've never "buyed" anything.
Quote from: Road Hog on March 29, 2023, 01:19:52 AM
The last time I buyed a newspaper was back when I speaked English.
I'm not really sure why someone would come into a bandit thread just to criticize banditry.
Because it bips. Or does it pib? I'm never really sure.
Quote from: hbelkins on March 29, 2023, 12:36:56 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on March 29, 2023, 04:29:19 AM
Quote from: 1995hoo on March 26, 2023, 08:11:49 AM
I've never "buyed" anything.
Quote from: Road Hog on March 29, 2023, 01:19:52 AM
The last time I buyed a newspaper was back when I speaked English.
I'm not really sure why someone would come into a bandit thread just to criticize banditry.
Because it bips. Or does it pib? I'm never really sure.
That reminds me, I need to add a "poo stop" for Timmy, during the C-bus roadmeet in a couple of weeks.
Quote from: Scott5114 on March 29, 2023, 04:29:19 AM
Quote from: 1995hoo on March 26, 2023, 08:11:49 AM
I've never "buyed" anything.
Quote from: Road Hog on March 29, 2023, 01:19:52 AM
The last time I buyed a newspaper was back when I speaked English.
I'm not really sure why someone would come into a bandit thread just to criticize banditry.
I don't really view it as being all that different from "countertrolling a troll," although to be clear I am not intending to suggest that bandit957 is a troll–he's not, he's just eccentric.
Quote from: 1995hoo on March 30, 2023, 10:57:33 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on March 29, 2023, 04:29:19 AM
Quote from: 1995hoo on March 26, 2023, 08:11:49 AM
I've never "buyed" anything.
Quote from: Road Hog on March 29, 2023, 01:19:52 AM
The last time I buyed a newspaper was back when I speaked English.
I'm not really sure why someone would come into a bandit thread just to criticize banditry.
I don't really view it as being all that different from "countertrolling a troll," although to be clear I am not intending to suggest that bandit957 is a troll–he's not, he's just eccentric.
Bandit957 is funny though he, along with NE2, are examples of older users getting cut a lot more slack than newer users.
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on March 30, 2023, 03:06:49 PM
Bandit957 is funny though he, along with NE2, are examples of older users getting cut a lot more slack than newer users.
I don't think they're at all the same. And, for what it's worth, |NE2| appears to have had his slack reined in at some point.
Quote from: kphoger on March 30, 2023, 03:10:21 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on March 30, 2023, 03:06:49 PM
Bandit957 is funny though he, along with NE2, are examples of older users getting cut a lot more slack than newer users.
I don't think they're at all the same. And, for what it's worth, |NE2| appears to have had his slack reined in at some point.
Bandit has never done anything bannable, although I think if a new user tried using Bandit's humor they would be laughed at and mocked.
wow, some of you really get bend out off shake with a deliferate miss steak
Quote from: formulanone on March 30, 2023, 08:03:47 PM
wow, some of you really get bend out off shake with a deliferate miss steak
Well done :cheers:
That said, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that bandit957 actually
believes that buyed is a word.
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on March 30, 2023, 03:39:20 PM
Quote from: kphoger on March 30, 2023, 03:10:21 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on March 30, 2023, 03:06:49 PM
Bandit957 is funny though he, along with NE2, are examples of older users getting cut a lot more slack than newer users.
I don't think they're at all the same. And, for what it's worth, |NE2| appears to have had his slack reined in at some point.
Bandit has never done anything bannable, although I think if a new user tried using Bandit's humor they would be laughed at and mocked.
Bandit has his personality that he maintains. Sometimes, newer users try toooo hard, and overshoot the mark.
Bandit has also been Bandit since he was on MTR.
Just poking fun, not intending to gore a sacred cow on this board.
Quote from: Scott5114 on March 31, 2023, 01:47:10 AM
Bandit has also been Bandit since he was on MTR.
Yes he has, and I have grown to appreciate his outlook. I will admit to sparring with him frequently on MTR eons ago, but I've found that we actually agree on a surprising number of things.
I bought a copy of The Wall Street Journal during a layover in Atlanta I had back in February. Before that??? (cue crickets).
My neighbor still gets a paper, but only twice a week. The Sunday one I see on his driveway as I'm walking my dog. Sunday papers are a shell of their former selves. So thin compared to the beast it used to be in the 90s!
The print version of the Cincinnati Enquirer is down to just a few pages, even on Sundays. The Sunday edition used to have 12 sections sometimes. They also changed the page size from a broadsheet to a tabloid.
But the online version isn't very big either. Most of it is just human interest stories and real estate deals, but every minor high school sporting event gets its own article. It doesn't have hardly any hard news stories.
Quote from: bandit957 on March 31, 2023, 11:28:00 AM
The print version of the Cincinnati Enquirer is down to just a few pages, even on Sundays. The Sunday edition used to have 12 sections sometimes. They also changed the page size from a broadsheet to a tabloid.
But the online version isn't very big either. Most of it is just human interest stories and real estate deals, but every minor high school sporting event gets its own article. It doesn't have hardly any hard news stories.
Gannett and its fellow chains have greatly diminished the papers that they own even more than the natural Internet-led decline.
Before WWII, the Sunday comics sections were thicker than dailies were by the 1990s.
That said, I pretty much stopped buying newspapers to read while eating lunch due to their writing becoming more and more unreadable, primarily due to increasingly 'in your face' political biases and non-stop 'touchy-feely' lecturing.
:no:
Mike
Quote from: Ted$8roadFan on March 31, 2023, 01:07:09 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on March 31, 2023, 11:28:00 AM
The print version of the Cincinnati Enquirer is down to just a few pages, even on Sundays. The Sunday edition used to have 12 sections sometimes. They also changed the page size from a broadsheet to a tabloid.
But the online version isn't very big either. Most of it is just human interest stories and real estate deals, but every minor high school sporting event gets its own article. It doesn't have hardly any hard news stories.
Gannett and its fellow chains have greatly diminished the papers that they own even more than the natural Internet-led decline.
Sad, and distressing, isn't it?
:angry:
Mike
Quote from: Ted$8roadFan on March 31, 2023, 01:07:09 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on March 31, 2023, 11:28:00 AM
The print version of the Cincinnati Enquirer is down to just a few pages, even on Sundays. The Sunday edition used to have 12 sections sometimes. They also changed the page size from a broadsheet to a tabloid.
But the online version isn't very big either. Most of it is just human interest stories and real estate deals, but every minor high school sporting event gets its own article. It doesn't have hardly any hard news stories.
Gannett and its fellow chains have greatly diminished the papers that they own even more than the natural Internet-led decline.
I hear similar complaints about the Courier-Journal.
What bugs me is all the corporate papers' Web sites all look the same. The C-J's pages look just like the Cincy Enquirer. In Lexington the Herald-Leader's pages look like any other McClatchy paper's Web site.
Gannett has been closing printing plants. The H-L (McClatchy) closed its press in Lexington and started printing at the C-J in Louisville. Then, the C-J press shut down. I don't know where the C-J is printed now, but have been told that the H-L prints in Knoxville. That means a trip across Pine Mountain (known to most as Jellico Mountain) to bring the printed product, and bad weather or a wreck somewhere on I-75 can mean huge delivery problems.
I think the Cincinnati Enquirer is printed in Columbus now.
I actually kind of liked reading a paper the last time I bought one. Maybe it was a bit nostalgic.
I'm much the same way with books. I much prefer an actual book over reading one on my Kindle. Something about holding it and turning the pages.
Quote from: OCGuy81 on March 31, 2023, 03:18:48 PM
....
I'm much the same way with books. I much prefer an actual book over reading one on my Kindle. Something about holding it and turning the pages.
I like a real book too, but my problem has been that a lot of my reading over the years has involved lengthy book series in which I'm caught up with the author and am awaiting the next release, which (prior to my getting a Kindle) I would then buy in hardcover. As much as a full-sized hardcover is nice to read when you're sitting in your chair at home, it is downright inconvenient when you're standing in a crowded subway car or when you have a limited amount of space in your carry-on luggage to fly somewhere. I suppose another consideration on the subway is that if it takes two hands to manipulate the book you're reading, it means you have to set whatever bag you might be carrying on the floor, which is not ideal both because of dirt and because of the possibility of theft. (I am not a "backpack person" and have not been since I graduated from law school 25 years ago, but even then, a backpack is far from ideal on a really crowded subway car both because of how it smacks other people and because it's easy for someone else to steal from it if you don't take it off your back.)
The Kindle is also better for use while sitting on the toilet (in our upstairs hall bathroom, I can set the Kindle on the magazine rack and not even have to hold it).
Quote from: 1995hoo on March 31, 2023, 04:02:20 PM
Quote from: OCGuy81 on March 31, 2023, 03:18:48 PM
....
I'm much the same way with books. I much prefer an actual book over reading one on my Kindle. Something about holding it and turning the pages.
I like a real book too, but my problem has been that a lot of my reading over the years has involved lengthy book series in which I'm caught up with the author and am awaiting the next release, which (prior to my getting a Kindle) I would then buy in hardcover. As much as a full-sized hardcover is nice to read when you're sitting in your chair at home, it is downright inconvenient when you're standing in a crowded subway car or when you have a limited amount of space in your carry-on luggage to fly somewhere. I suppose another consideration on the subway is that if it takes two hands to manipulate the book you're reading, it means you have to set whatever bag you might be carrying on the floor, which is not ideal both because of dirt and because of the possibility of theft. (I am not a "backpack person" and have not been since I graduated from law school 25 years ago, but even then, a backpack is far from ideal on a really crowded subway car both because of how it smacks other people and because it's easy for someone else to steal from it if you don't take it off your back.)
The Kindle is also better for use while sitting on the toilet (in our upstairs hall bathroom, I can set the Kindle on the magazine rack and not even have to hold it).
I agree the Kindle has certain built in benefits, which you highlighted, but when I'm on vacation I do find the glare makes it a bit hard to read outdoors. Do you use that Kindle Paperwhite? I've heard that alleviates the issue of reading an electronic device outdoors. I was thinking of picking one up when I go to Hawaii in June,
My Kindle dates to 2010 and still going strong, so it's not a Paperwhite and it doesn't have backlighting–I believe they called the model the Kindle Keyboard. My wife has a newer one because the battery on hers died, but I'm not sure which model we got her.
Off-topic, but Amazon, for both the Kindle and paper, is getting out of the magazine and newspaper business before the end of September. Did not announce a reason.
My most-local paper, when I was a little lad, was a county-wide paper. In my youngest of days, it would list the results of every little league game, talk about every tidbit of local news, and was very on-top of whatever was happening in the area. Every 8 year old strived to have that game-winning double and see their name in the paper the next day.
Over the years, the paper started to lack in this very local news. It still had some of the bigger stories of the area, but it didn't get into the smaller stuff. Then I would notice that it would talk about upcoming board council meetings, or what happened at the meetings...but rarely both. A reporter wasn't going to be bothered to write about what was happening and what actually happened.
Over the past decade or so it merged with a few others to be a tri-county paper, but was part of a state-wide entity. Staffing was down to just a few reporters to cover an extended area. The suburban areas of Philly were getting farming information for Cumberland County; Cumberland County was reading about a warehouse issue outside the city. It was the worst of both worlds for readership, because neither cared about the other, and the reporters had no clue what they were writing about.
Then, it would just write about state-wide stories, mostly stories from North Jersey. The local paper wouldn't have any stores from the tri-county area. Heck, the Philadelphia Eagles were in the Super Bowl. Arguably the biggest sports stage in this country. On Monday morning, the paper wrote...about the Kelce Brothers being the first brothers to play in the Super Bowl. It didn't have the decency to wait for the game. In fact, there wasn't a single story in Monday's paper that had Sunday's information in it. Even the lottery numbers from the 12:57pm Sunday lottery weren't there.
Politics also clearly ran the paper. The politicians learned if the reporters wanted some good info, don't write bad crap about them. Back in the day, the media was the defensive line between the public and the government. Today, the media joins the government.
Press releases would almost always be written line for line, without any new information added. The reporter would simply add their name to the "story" and act as if they wrote it. But if you did a google search for it, you would find it was basically plagiarized.
So, when you read the Enquirer, the Inquirer, the Times, or whatever paper name is out there, it's a sad, far cry from the paper of yesteryear. It's a shame, because those papers were fun reads.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on April 01, 2023, 01:08:04 PM
The politicians learned if the reporters wanted some good info, don't write bad crap about them. Back in the day, the media was the defensive line between the public and the government. Today, the media joins the government.
This is true about basically all American media these days at every level. (This is not how it works in other countries. It is really funny when a US President goes to another country and has to deal with their press corps, because they are very nearly always taken aback by how much more antagonistic the press is there.)
Quote from: jeffandnicole on April 01, 2023, 01:08:04 PM
Press releases would almost always be written line for line, without any new information added. The reporter would simply add their name to the "story" and act as if they wrote it. But if you did a google search for it, you would find it was basically plagiarized.
That's how the
Oklahoman, the paper of record for Oklahoma City, has been for years. Rarely if ever do you see them write anything bad about a local company, even when they're doing things like committing bank fraud or cheating on their taxes.
Quote from: Scott5114 on April 01, 2023, 05:02:51 PMThat's how the Oklahoman, the paper of record for Oklahoma City, has been for years. Rarely if ever do you see them write anything bad about a local company, even when they're doing things like committing bank fraud or cheating on their taxes.
This is what all of the Cincinnati media is like.
There's one local news website that actually reprints press releases from the electric utility verbatim as news stories.
Quote from: Scott5114 on April 01, 2023, 05:02:51 PM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on April 01, 2023, 01:08:04 PM
The politicians learned if the reporters wanted some good info, don't write bad crap about them. Back in the day, the media was the defensive line between the public and the government. Today, the media joins the government.
This is true about basically all American media these days at every level. (This is not how it works in other countries. It is really funny when a US President goes to another country and has to deal with their press corps, because they are very nearly always taken aback by how much more antagonistic the press is there.)
(https://media1.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExMTMyMGI1MTRkYzAzNWYwMzkzYjM3MzQyZjFhNGVlYmE0YTBlNDQ0OCZjdD1n/sFMEZ1ZFToyha/giphy.gif)
I don't think I've ever purchased one, but some guy offered me a free copy of The Alleghany News while stopped at a random gas station outside of Sparta, NC and I took it. I had the exact same thing happen to me in Blairsville, GA with a copy of North Georgia News.
Quote from: bandit957 on April 01, 2023, 05:07:28 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on April 01, 2023, 05:02:51 PMThat's how the Oklahoman, the paper of record for Oklahoma City, has been for years. Rarely if ever do you see them write anything bad about a local company, even when they're doing things like committing bank fraud or cheating on their taxes.
This is what all of the Cincinnati media is like.
There's one local news website that actually reprints press releases from the electric utility verbatim as news stories.
As a PR person now, I'm happy when that happens, and it happens often. Some of the newspapers to whom I send releases even give me a byline.
Quote from: hbelkins on April 01, 2023, 09:12:00 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on April 01, 2023, 05:07:28 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on April 01, 2023, 05:02:51 PMThat's how the Oklahoman, the paper of record for Oklahoma City, has been for years. Rarely if ever do you see them write anything bad about a local company, even when they're doing things like committing bank fraud or cheating on their taxes.
This is what all of the Cincinnati media is like.
There's one local news website that actually reprints press releases from the electric utility verbatim as news stories.
As a PR person now, I'm happy when that happens, and it happens often. Some of the newspapers to whom I send releases even give me a byline.
As a PR person, absolutely. You did your job. As a reporter, they did a lousy job, because they didn't do any more research into the project or issue.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on April 02, 2023, 06:23:34 AM
Quote from: hbelkins on April 01, 2023, 09:12:00 PM
Quote from: bandit957 on April 01, 2023, 05:07:28 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on April 01, 2023, 05:02:51 PMThat's how the Oklahoman, the paper of record for Oklahoma City, has been for years. Rarely if ever do you see them write anything bad about a local company, even when they're doing things like committing bank fraud or cheating on their taxes.
This is what all of the Cincinnati media is like.
There's one local news website that actually reprints press releases from the electric utility verbatim as news stories.
As a PR person now, I'm happy when that happens, and it happens often. Some of the newspapers to whom I send releases even give me a byline.
As a PR person, absolutely. You did your job. As a reporter, they did a lousy job, because they didn't do any more research into the project or issue.
To be fair, most of the releases are for routine issues like temporary road closures for drainage pipe replacements, full-width (monolithic) resurfacing projects, and that type of work. Not a lot of embellishing to be done or additional digging by a reporter.
At one of the papers where I worked, there was a standing order from the owner/publisher that no press releases were to be run on the front page. So anytime we got one that was deemed front-page worthy, I would either call to get more information, or rewrite the release. I've used that experience in my current job to try to write the releases to be more informative and less full of fluff that isn't pertinent to the situation. One of my predecessors wouldn't even send press releases. If they needed to close a road, he'd just call the newspaper and tell them what was going on, and put the onus on them to write it up. When I took this job, one of the newspaper editors in my district -- someone I'd known for years -- told me she could never remember getting any news releases from us before.
Sometimes I purchase a copy of the BR Advocate just to marvel at how slender it is (esp. the weekday editions). Even 10-15 years ago it was noticeably bulkier. The newsprint sometimes comes in handy around the house.
And this is a major locally owned newspaper serving three of the state's largest cities.
Of course the Gannett papers are far worse. I think the Shreveport Times is down to one general assignment reporter and one sports reporter for a metro of 400K.
Gee, maybe at least two years.
I can't remember the last time I "buyed" a print newspaper. It may have been one of the local weekly papers at one time that had an article of interest in it that they don't put on their website. Otherwise, I will read the day old unsold newspapers that my store puts in the break room, but the paper isn't woth buying. Which is a shame, because I would like to support local journalism and like keeping up on local news, but daily newspapers have been so downsized that they aren't worth the price anymore.
Here is a link to the front pages of today's papers:
https://www.freedomforum.org/todaysfrontpages/#1
Notice how similar many these pages are, especially within states. And this is just the front page.
When I was growing up, the Courier-Journal printed a same-day mailed edition. We would get that day's paper in our mailbox at the post office. It went to press very early, so it did not have a lot of sports scores in it, especially late baseball games. On Sundays, we bought the combined Lexington Herald (morning) and Lexington Leader (afternoon) paper at a nearby country store.
When the C-J discontinued the same-day mailed edition, my dad would pick up the Lexington Herald every morning on his way to work. I don't remember how we got papers on Saturdays or on days when he didn't work due to bad weather, school vacations, etc., but we didn't miss many papers at all. We continued to get the Sunday paper at the country store up the road.
When my dad retired, I brought him a paper every day. At some point, the country store closed but we made arrangements to get the Sunday paper. Eventually, the morning Herald and afternoon Leader merged into the Herald-Leader. My brother and I subscribed to home delivery of the H-L for him one Christmas.
So I grew up with newspapers. When I was in college, I took the Lexington Herald every day. My final semester, when I was teaching two newswriting and reporting classes as a graduate assistant, I took both the Herald and the C-J.
I maintained a H-L subscription all the years I lived away from home until about 2015, when I let it expire due to financial and other considerations. If I hadn't, as it turns out, that decision would probably have been made for me. The H-L seems to have abandoned several counties in eastern Kentucky. There's no home delivery, paper boxes have been empty for years, and the paper doesn't even publish obituaries from area funeral homes anymore except in rare instances.
The fall of the news industry has been hard for me, as someone who grew up reading newspapers and majored in journalism in college and worked in the field for many years, to believe. The newspaper industry has been its own worst enemy, though, and has brought the waning circulation numbers and scorn it receives upon itself.
Quote from: hbelkins on April 08, 2023, 09:16:26 PM
The fall of the news industry has been hard for me, as someone who grew up reading newspapers and majored in journalism in college and worked in the field for many years, to believe. The newspaper industry has been its own worst enemy, though, and has brought the waning circulation numbers and scorn it receives upon itself.
When started delivering papers for a short period of time, I was filling out some paperwork and talked about how they had an online paper, which was pretty novel for the time, but they felt it had to be "free" because this way they'd be out front of any competition. Besides, there really wasn't a online subscription service that they could work out back in 1997, and they only had one webmaster who typed up everything (it wasn't the entire paper, just the equivalent of the first few pages of each section). There weren't even any ads, which were still kind of a new-ish thing at the time.
I really look back at that question as a pivotal point, since the answer was seen as damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don't for the intersection of technologies in that time.
Every day on the way to work I drive past the remaining Seattle Times truck fleet. (https://goo.gl/maps/vUWBUV6W9b1DS3pa7) They used to have their own press in Bothell, but they demolished that with the presses still in place, and now they contract it out to a third party press in Kent. The trucks still have the Times and PI names on them, and the new trucks on the left are still unpainted. Their plans to open a second plant in Renton died when the price of newsprint went up. Those were the days.
Quote from: formulanone on April 09, 2023, 07:18:50 PM
Quote from: hbelkins on April 08, 2023, 09:16:26 PM
The fall of the news industry has been hard for me, as someone who grew up reading newspapers and majored in journalism in college and worked in the field for many years, to believe. The newspaper industry has been its own worst enemy, though, and has brought the waning circulation numbers and scorn it receives upon itself.
When started delivering papers for a short period of time, I was filling out some paperwork and talked about how they had an online paper, which was pretty novel for the time, but they felt it had to be "free" because this way they'd be out front of any competition. Besides, there really wasn't a online subscription service that they could work out back in 1997, and they only had one webmaster who typed up everything (it wasn't the entire paper, just the equivalent of the first few pages of each section). There weren't even any ads, which were still kind of a new-ish thing at the time.
I really look back at that question as a pivotal point, since the answer was seen as damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don't for the intersection of technologies in that time.
When I got started in the business, layout was done manually. There was actually one newspaper left in Kentucky that used hot-metal Linotype machines; everyone else used phototypesetting. You still had to manually cut out the copy and paste it on a layout sheet using hot wax. In 1987, I took a job with a paper that was one of the first adopters of desktop publishing in Kentucky. They used Macintosh computers to produce the copy using a laser printer and plain paper, but it still had to be pasted up. Computerized pagination wasn't a thing yet and could only be done on a rudimentary basis within the limits of Aldus Pagemaker. (Yes, I said Aldus, not Adobe.)
I left the business for six years, and when I went back, in 2001, full pagination was catching on. You could produce full pages on the computer, produce PDF files, and transmit those electronically to the printing plant. You didn't have to transport full-page paste-ups to the plant to have negatives shot and printing plates prepared.
The advent of that technology made it easier to produce electronic editions of that day's paper. While many newspapers have Web sites that show news stories, and they may or may not be paywalled, you can subscribe to an e-edition that contains PDF files of what was printed that day. Papers may offer this service via a Web site or by emailing you the PDF.
^^^^
Did someone then have to use a roller to "roll the pages" before sending them to the print shop? What you're describing sounds very similar to how we published The Cavalier Daily during my college years. (But we ran PageMaker on PCs, not on Macs.)
Quote from: hbelkins on April 10, 2023, 11:18:05 AM
Quote from: formulanone on April 09, 2023, 07:18:50 PM
Quote from: hbelkins on April 08, 2023, 09:16:26 PM
The fall of the news industry has been hard for me, as someone who grew up reading newspapers and majored in journalism in college and worked in the field for many years, to believe. The newspaper industry has been its own worst enemy, though, and has brought the waning circulation numbers and scorn it receives upon itself.
When started delivering papers for a short period of time, I was filling out some paperwork and talked about how they had an online paper, which was pretty novel for the time, but they felt it had to be "free" because this way they'd be out front of any competition. Besides, there really wasn't a online subscription service that they could work out back in 1997, and they only had one webmaster who typed up everything (it wasn't the entire paper, just the equivalent of the first few pages of each section). There weren't even any ads, which were still kind of a new-ish thing at the time.
I really look back at that question as a pivotal point, since the answer was seen as damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don't for the intersection of technologies in that time.
When I got started in the business, layout was done manually. There was actually one newspaper left in Kentucky that used hot-metal Linotype machines; everyone else used phototypesetting. You still had to manually cut out the copy and paste it on a layout sheet using hot wax. In 1987, I took a job with a paper that was one of the first adopters of desktop publishing in Kentucky. They used Macintosh computers to produce the copy using a laser printer and plain paper, but it still had to be pasted up. Computerized pagination wasn't a thing yet and could only be done on a rudimentary basis within the limits of Aldus Pagemaker. (Yes, I said Aldus, not Adobe.)
I left the business for six years, and when I went back, in 2001, full pagination was catching on. You could produce full pages on the computer, produce PDF files, and transmit those electronically to the printing plant. You didn't have to transport full-page paste-ups to the plant to have negatives shot and printing plates prepared.
The advent of that technology made it easier to produce electronic editions of that day's paper. While many newspapers have Web sites that show news stories, and they may or may not be paywalled, you can subscribe to an e-edition that contains PDF files of what was printed that day. Papers may offer this service via a Web site or by emailing you the PDF.
I took a printing class in high school, mainly because it was the only way I was going to take a photography class, but we used a combination of a laser printer and Macintosh and later, Aldus Pagemaker (though I think I used it exactly once, someone else was a wiz at that). We still had to do layouts the old fashioned way, and photomechanical transfer for any images. Then set it all up on an offset press.
It's been 30+ years since I've worked with those things together but it was neat to get a glimpse of the physical backend production work. I think it bugged my family that a potential college student liked getting hands dirty but we didn't have auto shop, being a fairly new school. I enjoyed seeing and doing hands-on with making stuff.
I highly doubt that massive industrial paper cutter is used by students today. Watching that three-foot wide blade cut through 1000 sheets of paper at an arcing angle was so very satisfying.
HB, the electronic text from print back to online makes more sense than I envisioned; it didn't seem to be possible to type that all up, even given that HTML was pretty basic back then. I figured someone was hammering it all up at 120wpm...
Quote from: 1995hoo on April 10, 2023, 01:06:23 PM
^^^^
Did someone then have to use a roller to "roll the pages" before sending them to the print shop? What you're describing sounds very similar to how we published The Cavalier Daily during my college years. (But we ran PageMaker on PCs, not on Macs.)
Yes. I think the technical term was "burnisher" but "roller" was the term that was in common use.
I recently found an old proportion wheel, but my pica pole remains missing. I also found some rolls of border tape that had been stashed away from the 1980s.
I didn't have my own roller, but I stealthily guarded my proportion wheel, pica pole, scissors, and Xacto knife.