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Ask HN: Do you read newspaper/newspapers everyday?

9 points by kloc ↗ HN
I have been reading newspaper everyday for as long as I can remember. I am thinking of canceling my subscription( I read Hindu in India). Reasons to stop: 1) By the time I get the newspaper next day most of the news I had already read on line. 2) Most of the news is not useful or uninteresting to me like crime, bad road, CM inaugurating a new flyover etc etc. 3) Too much paper to handle, I live in a small apartment, clean it once in a week and I have paper scattered all over my place by then. 4) The time I spend reading can be used to read something more interesting to me. Reasons not to stop: 1) Will miss out the editorials. 2) Will miss out the weekly magazine and monthly literary review. 3) Will miss the daily cartoon strips (Calvin n Hobbes fan).

All of the above can be still read on line but I don't think I will be really doing it. There are more interesting things(like read Hacker News, reddit etc) to do on line :)

16 comments

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simonk
I still read a local paper because I get to reading reddit and HN and never get to local news.
kloc
Keeping in mind Timothy ferris' "low information diet" I wont mind missing out mundane local news and any important local news will appear on google news in couple of hours anyway.
quizbiz
Here at a university campus, part of my daily routine is picking up the New York Times and making a mess of the papers because I never learned how to properly read and fold a newspaper.
kloc
and thats the reason I don't like anyone else to read my newspaper before I do :)
bugs
I kind of wish I could get the newspaper delivered here, local or more probably the new york times.

However if I am ever staying at a place that has the newspaper delivered or available I will pick it up and read most of the front page articles (from each section) and flip through the rest for interesting things.

The newspaper really is a different experience from other ways of getting the information many times you can read articles and editorials with a good amount of thought put into them (depending on the quality of the paper) and in general is a nice form of entertainment for an hour or so.

kloc
I agree and this is the reason I didn't cancel my subscription yet. The newspaper I read(Hindu.co.in) is one of the best one around. Gets editorials from NY Times, Guardian and other Indian intellectuals.
cema
Several years ago I stopped reading newspapers (paper versions, on the regular basis) and watch tv. And I have a feeling that I am now better informed -- from the Internet.

However, I make a point of monitoring a number of sources, to avoid the echo chamber effect. Many of these sources, like news.google.com, drudge report etc, are essentially news aggregators. Others are typically social networks like LiveJournal where I can sometimes find eyewitnesses. I still look at newspapers (online versions), mostly when someone points to an interesting article.

chaosprophet
For me a copy of The Hindu in my left hand and a hot cup of filter coffee in the right is the only way to start a day. I don't really watch TV, nor do I read news online, so the newspaper is really my only source of news.
paraschopra
If you are in India, read Mint - highly recommended. Great business stories.
kloc
I am in bangalore and Mint is nice for sure Paras but the point is that should I still subscribe to news"paper" or just read everything online :)
garyrichardson
I read a news paper every because it gets me a wide range of news. Online, I tend to focus on my interests and I don't really get a general vibe about what's going on.
TrevorBurnham
Newspapers occupy an awkward middle point between the breaking news you can find on a myriad of websites and the rich, analytical pieces that can be found in good magazines (like The New Yorker and The Atlantic). Generally, there are more efficient ways of getting your news. For instance, Slate.com has a good daily summary of the best newspaper stories. Having said that, reading a physical newspaper can be a relaxing activity; I read the Sunday New York Times in print.

Here's a good lambasting of the prevalent style of newspaper writing:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201001/short-writing

Also, for the record, you can subscribe to a daily Calvin & Hobbes strip by RSS through GoComics. The feed URL is:

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/uclick/calvinandhobbes?format=x...

kloc
thanks for the feed :)
drhowarddrfine
I agree with all your reasons. I stopped buying the newspaper years ago. Today, I'd not buy it because the local paper is more popular news than hard news if it's news at all. The number of newspapers worth reading can be counted on one hand but I'd rather pay to read those online so their searchable. (Ack! Newspapers don't read HN, do they?)
Zev
I try and read the newspaper daily. Usually a local paper (If you're from NYC area: I read the NY Daily News, although I used to read Newsday before the format change), during lunch/dinner. The newspaper is something (usually) with lots of topics to read on. Plus its cheap and I don't care about it, so if I spill liquid on it, its not the end of the world.

I like it. It lets me keep up to date with what the politicians in the area are doing (plus my Senators/Representative to Congress) in slightly more detail than a paragraph buried in a CNN article. Plus the sports section is entertaining (during baseball and football seasons, at least)

mrlyc
Newspapers can be a very unreliable source of news. I haven't read one every day since January 1980 when 10,000 of us motorcyclists rode to Canberra to protest against the latest round of "four wheels good, two wheels bad" road rules. That trip got two paragraphs on page 3 in The Age. The following week, two busloads of pensioners went to Canberra and were front page news.