A Life Without Newspapers

I suppose I was being a little ambitious when I asked for some form of debate on my first 'Life Without...' post last week. In fact I am perfectly aware that people don't really like to comment on the sort of stuff that I'm writing about because it's there to be read, not ripped to shreds. I'm happy that people take time to read my posts; it might be a little to much to ask them to take even more time to write about them as well. So with that I'll move on to the second of my 'life without...' musings - newspapers. It strikes me that I am becoming a part of a rare breed that actually do read the papers. Of course there are people that have been doing it for many years and will continue to do it for as long as newspapers are available, but how long will that actually be? With the growth in the use of the internet and, in particular, portable devices that can access the internet anywhere and any time, where does that leave the good old broadsheet? How long will it be before the only thing that newspapers are used for are as a novelty lining for a bag of chips? In many ways it scares me. 

When I was a bit younger (lets say 6 or 7 years ago) I used to pick up the newspaper and pretend to be clever. The only part of the paper that I actually ever read was the sport section and even then I would be more interested by the pictures, football stats and the single match report about my team's recent game. The rest of the paper was for the grown-ups as far as I was concerned and was, dare I say it, completely boring to me. It wasn't until I really started to pick up books that I really got into reading the newspaper. I've been reading for a long time but it's not really until the last 4 or 5 years where I would say that I've become a 'prolific' reader. Now I find myself reading anything and everything and of course, the natural progression for me was to go towards the newspapers. For a short period they amazed me with the amount of stuff that I could find out. From current affairs and opinions pages to book reviews and interviews - they have everything. I should point out that I knew all of this stuff existed - I wasn't stupid - but I never considered how interesting it could be for me. Getting a little older has probably had an impact but now I would call myself a newspaper reader - something that I would have scoffed at only half a decade ago.

I think that it's all about striking the balance between hard copies of the news and the digital world. I would say that I actually use the internet more than most people I know but I still manage to find time to read the papers. Usually I only get the weekend papers but the great thing is that, with all of the magazines and supplements you get with one, it can last you until the middle of the week. For the most up to date news I use the internet (and then I just skim the first 10 pages or so of the newspaper) and then I'll spend more time with the review, sport, travel sections. Anyone that's ever picked up the Observer on a Sunday will know that they have an amazing supplement called 'The New Review' which always has something of interest for everyone. Yes I'll occasionally look at a book review or an interesting article online but there is something just not the same about reading it off a computer screen. In fact I very rarely find myself doing any reading on my laptop just because it's not as easy. Amazon have managed to hit the spot by bringing special ink displays to life with their Kindle but other than that you really can't beat a book or newspaper full of the white and black stuff - paper and ink of course!

Of course I would love to find out what people think about this idea of a life without newspapers (that comment box isn't going anywhere!) but then again I'm sure you are all busy people and so thank you for reading and if you have a spare couple of hours on your hand at the weekend, pick up a paper!

Cheers,

Martin