Why (and when) the print edition works
Ryan Sholin made a list of 15 reasons why he has used a print newspaper (instead of the online). I found it eclectic and thought provoking.
For a couple of minutes I mused on my teen years, when I read the newspaper every day. My list for that time (30 years ago) would start like this:
- Comics
- Ann Landers
- Movie showtimes
- Mike Royko
But then I started to think more about when and less about why. Why did I read the newspaper every day when I was in high school? Because it was an afternoon paper, and it was delivered soon after I came home from school, and it gave me something to do while I was waiting for dinner (we ate dinner rather early).
I thought about when I read a print newspaper now (which is rarely):
- When I’m in another city and the paper is either delivered to my hotel room (although that’s usually USA Today and not the local paper) or catches my eye in an honor box or other convenient place.
- When I’m visiting my friend who lives near D.C. and subscribes the The Washington Post, because I love the Post.
- When I have a train journey or a long subway ride ahead of me (note that I never read newspapers on planes, because there’s just not enough space).
- In a past existence, I read The New York Times for hours every Sunday — in part because I worked until very late on Saturday nights and was able to pick up the Sunday Times on my way home; after a good long sleep, I could indulge myself in lounging around the house.
- For about five years in the 1980s I had a job at a weekly trade newspaper in New York; on four mornings a week I’d arrive at the office with my breakfast and The New York Times and spend about an hour reading the paper, eating, and drinking coffee. (You only have one deadline crunch day at a weekly.) Everyone there did this; we also scanned all the technology stories in The Wall Street Journal every day.
In my current lifestyle, I concluded, the printed newspaper just does not fit. I spend a lot of time in front of a computer, in various environments.
In that, I’m not so different from most people in North America.
Hey Mindy: You got me thinking. What strikes me is how short your list is. Actually so is mine. It made me wonder whether newspapers should think about getting much much smaller and spending the money they save on doing less but focusing more on the sorts of things people are actually using them for. A flick through the news and pre-work access to the smartest and funniest columnists. Just a thought.
http://blog.inksniffer.com/2008/03/21/maybe-less-is-more-in-the-future-of-newspapers.aspx
John
March 21, 2008 at 12:10 pm[...] people get their news from the Web. Printed newspapers don’t fit many of our lifestyles, as Mindy McAdams put it: In my current lifestyle, I concluded, the printed newspaper just does not fit. I spend a lot of [...]
March 21, 2008 at 12:23 pm[...] isso é muito interessante ver como o Ryan Sholin e a Mindy MacAdams falam da forma como “usam/usavam” os jornais em papel. É um acto ritualizado, que já [...]
March 21, 2008 at 9:35 pm@John Duncan: I would not necessarily pick up a printed newspaper even if they changed the content now. This was part of what I was mulling over.
Where am I going to make time in my morning — or anywhere in my day, for that matter — to hold something printed in my hands and read it for at least 20 minutes? I had to give up all my magazine subscriptions (although right now I am considering whether I can now fit in time to read print versions of The Economist and National Geographic Traveler), because pretty much the only print reading time I have is at bedtime — and that’s reserved for fiction and other pleasure reading.
March 22, 2008 at 11:58 am[...] First up is Ryan Sholin. How I have used the print edition, historically speaking, is both a somewhat nostalgic look back at ink-on-paper and a few observations on how that relates (and doesn’t) to online. While Ryan’s post is a great thing in itself, it has also kicked off some interesting conversation and musings elsewhere. (See John Duncan and Mindy McAdams.) [...]
March 23, 2008 at 12:46 am