I have issues with my newspapers. I get two every day, and they seem to be less enjoyable than before. My Reader’s Digest has already become a wasteland of advertisements, but now the newsprint media is following that same path to implosion.
One local paper has even stooped to printing a 1 1/4 page front. That’s right: a flap of a page piggybacks onto the “real” front page: the piece is simply a reprint of what lies beneath it. Often it simply falls off.
Section A of the paper includes a major department store ad which is a separate section but still labeled as Section A, possibly as a ruse to encourage readers to open it seeking other articles of importance.
The entertainment page has doubled to include the cooking section on some days, the social calendar on others. It’s depressing to see celebrity breakups on the left page and then read about the latest expensive common folk nuptials on the right page.
The television section only features prime time listings for about 50 of the 200 channels we get on our cable system. I don’t know why networks like BBC America put up with not having their own listings in the paper: how are people supposed to know what programming is on? Don’t refer me to the onscreen guide: I nearly broke my fingers trying to scroll through the listings in a vain attempt to pre-program my week’s tapings. I’ll never touch that onscreen hindrance again.
The type is getting smaller in the daily papers, and the grammatical errors are beyond belief. The comics are squeezed into tighter formats: even Prince Valiant loses some drama when the panels are the size of wallet photos.
One of the two carriers manages to throw the paper onto the doorstep every day. The other hurls it onto the wet lawn (sometimes unbagged). One paper has decided to offer a call-in forum for comments about general issues by the readers, and the biggest complaint is that of senior citizens who must make a daily (and often cumbersome) trek to find their papers in the morning. In second place is the volume of complaints about that aforementioned front flap.
I honestly believe that this world is going out of its way to make life as difficult as possible for select groups of people. If the readership for newspapers in print goes, then the papers disappear, it shouldn’t be long before the intangible integrity of internet news will face its own problems.
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