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19 December 2008

Do you read the morning newspaper? I've gotten the local newspaper delivered every morning for the last twenty years and I'm bummed that it might be going under. Does anyone else read the morning paper with their coffee or am I the only one left?[More:]I don't feel like I can go out and face the world until I've had two cups of coffee and have read the Post-Gazette cover to cover. It's habit that I picked up from my parents who usually had two papers and then another in the afternoon (and both chain smoked through breakfast, a tradition that I don't follow).

The worst part is that if the center-left Post-Gazette folds, the only other local paper here is the far-right Tribune-Review owned by Richard Mellon Scaife and I can never buy that rag. The T-R has never made money but Scaife has billions and will pour money into it until he dies to give him a mouthpiece to attack Democrats.

So do any other bunnies read their morning paper?
My partner does, and has been a subscriber for as long as I've known him. He also does EVERY crossword puzzle, every day.
posted by BoringPostcards 19 December | 08:59
I last got a morning newspaper in the late 80's. Read it everyday, over coffee. These days it's all nytimes.com and NPR in the morning for me, over coffee, of course.
posted by DarkForest 19 December | 09:17
I love the idea of reading an actual newspaper with coffee, but I rarely do it. I read my local paper, and other papers, online.
posted by LoriFLA 19 December | 09:24
I used to until a couple of years ago when I got a snotty note from the carrier one snowy/icy day because I hadn't gone out predawn before he and his wife got there to clear the walkway. Now if I want one I buy it at work.
posted by JanetLand 19 December | 09:27
When I lived in Baltimore I did. The Baltimore sun was the perfect length for my morning routine. Now, I need to get up and leave reasonably quickly, so I chug my cup of tea while checking my email and don't look at anything else.
posted by gaspode 19 December | 09:28
I haven't bought a newspaper since I got a computer. I pick up the free Metro paper at the station on the days I go into work, but all my other newspaper reading is done online.
posted by essexjan 19 December | 09:28
We do, but my wife was a journalist all her professional life, until this year. I appreciate the love for it, but when the dead tree edition is gone I will not miss the stacks of paper piling up at the end of the week or the hundreds of pounds of paper recycling we generate every year.
posted by middleclasstool 19 December | 09:33
Only on Sunday. I miss my old neighborhood, where I used to buy it from a man in a newstand. Now I go to the hip coffee shop to pick it up. It's not the same.
posted by crush-onastick 19 December | 09:36
I did until I got laid off a couple of years ago. I thought I would die of comics withdrawal - I read Mary Worth every damn morning for like 15 years, kill me now - but actually I hardly missed it. These days I read the free weekly for local stuff and get my news from Metafilter. What? I'm very well informed. ;-)
posted by mygothlaundry 19 December | 09:42
I buy a Saturday paper and read it and have the Sunday delivered. Reading the Sunday paper has been a comfort routine of mine since before I was ten. I have thought about this economic cycle heralding the end of dead tree papers. The stock price of our paper's mother company has plummeted from about $14 a few years ago to $1.50 - ish lately. That's scary territory. I'd adjust. Voids would be filled - by local bloggers, I'd imagine. The thing is as much as the local paper sucks, its website sucks more. I check NYT online several times during the day.
posted by rainbaby 19 December | 10:15
I love the local daily. I don't get it right now because I'm conserving money, but it's terrific. There is just no substitute - it keeps you informed about the community, lets you know who's saying what about road projects and construction and how they're spending your tax money in your town, what evetns are happening, who's interesting and important, how much the house down the street from you sold for, etc...

I don't really enjoy reading online, and anyway, you end up taking in much less information because online layouts are a lot more tiered and less dense than print newspapers, so I miss more detail. Reading online is just different.

I do read the NYT online, but like it better in print - I just don't get it every day. It's my homepage, so I can keep up with the headlines and columnists, but I like reading the good writing in print much better.

All that and it's a comfortable, relaxing morning ritual to scan the news. It gives me a handle on the day. Given that I spend too much time at work reading off a screen anyway, I really don't want to read my leisure-time newspapers, books, and magazines on a screen, too.
posted by Miko 19 December | 10:57
Back when I worked a normal work schedule, my favorite thing to do Sundays was to sit on the floor in the sun from a window, drink coffee, listen to NPR, and read the paper. This was back when I was living in Napa, and would read the SF Chronicle. The pink section was the best part (and, yes, the paper was pink). I'd get a cup of coffee from the Napa Valley Roasting Company, pick up the paper, and spread out on the floor of my living room with the cat supervising. I think those were the times I was happiest in my life.

Since I've moved to Colorado, I no longer get the paper. I work a continuous work schedule, so 4 days on, 4 off. When I worked graveyard shift, I'd just read someone's leftover paper from days, and now that I'm on day shift, it doesn't arrive early enough for me to bring it to work. It's such a waste to not be able to read the paper half the days.

What I really miss is from when I was a kid in Davis, and the local afternoon daily paper. Of course this was back when the ink rubbed off on your hands, and you could take Silly Putty and take images off the paper and stretch them out giving funny expressions to the subjects. This was especially good on the Sunday comics.

I guess I'm getting old.
posted by eekacat 19 December | 11:01
I usually read the daily paper after work. But when I am down in LA, I HAVE to read the LA Times, over coffee, at my mom's house. It's an old habit that clings whenever I go down there.

I read a zillion papers online.
posted by danf 19 December | 11:29
I've always been a newspaper-reader. Paper, a smoke and coffee out on the patio in the morning after a good breakfast is pretty close to my idea of heaven.
posted by WolfDaddy 19 December | 11:45
I have not subscribed to a newspaper for at least twenty years. I can't stand the faux-objectivity which was finally discarded this year. At long last the last journalists are unafraid to inject their personal opinions into straight news stories! Its what the industry has needed for years.

*sigh*
posted by trinity8-director 19 December | 11:46
My father reads it at night when he gets home from work after dinner. On the weekends, he reads it in the morning after breakfast, but before shaving.

I read it online at work when it's slow.
posted by sperose 19 December | 11:50
I read the local alt-weekly every Sunday morning at the bowling alley, but otherwise no.
posted by muddgirl 19 December | 12:37
As you can imagine, printing a modern newspaper is a fairly automated process but the technology is rooted in the early 80s. Those presses are now giving out and publishers face a huge financial decision in not just replacing the hardware but retraining the printers, the mechanics and the electricians. Additionally, those papers must be distributed by fleets of trucks, drivers, distribution points and the individual delivery personnel. Plus, as demand drops the cost of newsprint soars. The carbon footprint is ginormous.

Readers rarely paid more than a fraction of a paper's true cost. Except for cars, advertisers today face stiff competition from online sales and justifying print ads is more difficult.

The relief lies in Thursday and Sunday editions, which I think will become not just glossier but more detailed about the important local news (politics, business, etc.) and less reliant on the gore factor.
posted by Ardiril 19 December | 12:47
The relief lies in Thursday and Sunday editions, which I think will become not just glossier but more detailed about the important local news (politics, business, etc.) and less reliant on the gore factor.

Actually, in-depth local coverage and the glossy Sunday magazine were among the first things cut from The Philadelphia Inquirer several years ago. It's why we stopped getting it.
posted by jrossi4r 19 December | 13:31
I canceled by Sunday NYT delivery a couple weeks ago. I tried it for a few months to see if I could get into a routine. Didn't take.
posted by mullacc 19 December | 13:52
jrossi: Wow, I'm surprised as local hard news is the content that differentiates a newspaper from other print media. The politicians must love that.
posted by Ardiril 19 December | 15:11
I like to go out and read the NY Times over coffee somewhere with a big window. Bonus points for not having haul the papers back out in big bundles.

Octothorpe, when I grew up in Pittsburgh we used to get the Post Gazette delivered at 7 am, and the Pittsburgh Press at 3 pm, and the late edition Pittsburgh Press at 5:30 pm.
posted by StickyCarpet 19 December | 17:51
I get a paper every day at work, and read it during my break. On Sundays, I like to go out, buy bagels for the family, come home, make a pot of coffee, and settle in with the paper before the rest of the family get up. It's harder now, with the stepdaughter living on the couch. I miss my Sunday mornings.
posted by redvixen 19 December | 20:26
Tech support for my friend! || Majel Barrett Roddenberry dies

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