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News, Spin

The Paper’s Back

The newspaper is here. It’s unopened in its yellow rain bag, middle of the driveway. I’m savoring the moment, the anticipation.

Northwest Arkansas Newspapers LLC aka NWA Media
Images scavenged from www.ozarksunbound.com & www.nwaonline.com

Also, I wanted to write my rationale first.

This being Northwest Arkansas, it’s really two newspapers bundled. If this was elsewhere in America, it would be one newspaper with a zoned local (or hyperlocal) section. The two corporations that in 2009 created this amalgam soon may admit the latter — four zoned editions for the main cities therein — is what it is.

I missed the damned thing, the daily doorstop.

It’s been seven weeks. Eight weeks ago yesterday I was downsized along with several of my longtime buddies at the Northwest Arkansas edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. That was a Thursday noon; the family health policy ended 36 hours later, midnight Friday (shifting to a costly but complete COBRA plan for those who wanted it). A week later my paycheck-deducted newspaper subscription stopped.

Had a funny phone conversation with the circulation dispatcher that day:

I didn’t get my paper.”
“I’ll check. I see that you were terminated so your delivery ended, too.” (Pause)
“I figured; the carriers have been wonderful our 14 years here. Don’t you want to ask me if I want to buy a regular subscription?” (Longer pause)
“Uh, sure, but I need to go check.”
“Don’t bother. I have to leave. Maybe I’ll subscribe later.”

About a week later, my former newspaper’s telemarketing kicked in. They have phoned every single night (!) and with the help of Caller ID, I didn’t answer. This past Monday I picked up. What I wanted was Wednesday, Friday and Sunday delivery. With any subscription the online paywall drops, giving me complete access. Nope. All that’s offered is daily, Sunday-only or Friday-Saturday-Sunday. I said OK. this way I get Saturday’s longstanding gem, the Otus the Head Cat satirical column.

My rate comes to about 40 cents a paper. The per-unit feels a tad high, but if it helps keep wages flowing to my newsroom pals still clocking in, what can I say?

Research

These seven weeks comprised an experiment on myself. Would I miss a delivered daily print newspaper?

Conclusion: Yes, but not in an old fogy way.

I’ve gotten news. I check news websites several times a day, including those of newspapers. I’ve grown to honor the websites of local TV stations with their brief but sufficient text reports (and they’re largely free of typos!) — still only watch a total of 15 minutes of local newscasts on television in any week. I’ve become an even bigger fan of my region’s TheCityWire.com for its variety and integrity.

Fogies would miss the smearing ink on paper that’s yellowed a bit by the next day, or comics, TV listings or other “lite” bits. Not me. That’s all available online.

What was lacking for me was the easy-to-comprehend summary of events of the preceding period of time. I didn’t specify the “preceding day” to include weekly magazines. Newsweek ends its print edition in two months.

To be precise I missed specifics on whatever happened in the last sessions of Congress before it recessed. I missed learning of the day-to-day battles in the Syrian civil war.

Online with just a little effort I find sufficient local, national and world news. But I know I am missing chunks.

Online with zero effort I can learn the facts behind whatever was attracting controversy that minute. Controversy these days is a confection manufactured by pundits, opinions with built-in obsolescence of 72 hours.

Which is to say, this year’s farm bill was missing in action on the window to the world that is the Web. Were it not for local friends posting on Facebook about Syria, I wouldn’t know how Assad is faring. I see major news online of course, so he must still be hanging in, not yet hanging.

This Brick isn’t really about me, except as an example. I am a news hound, a junkie, both by nurture (parents passionate for information and reading) and by a vocation of over three decades, including 10 years as International Editor of the aforementioned Demzette. Access should be fairly easy for me.

But what about others? Americans must be growing more ignorant with every passing month. I know what to look for. A presidential foreign policy debate at best is academic to people who do not have direct ties to the U.S. military and at worst their knowledge is limited to well-distributed biased manipulations of facts — by all sides.

The best places online for news remain nytimes.com (though it’s got a partial paywall), washingtonpost.com and the better British outlets — I favor guardian.co.uk and bbc.co.uk.

We have to want to find information to get it.

Even the best websites are chaotic nestings of confusion. Partly that’s a case of what-do-you-expect from huge news media: They have so much to offer. Yet I suspect these Internet home pages are more designed for their executives to see every single division that their budgets are expending. That’s a priority over the convenience of even savvy viewers.

Try to use the damnable mobile applications. Most of the media companies have created apps for smartphones and tablet computers that are slow-loading, haphazardly indexed and missing content. I have loaded several news apps on my iPad. I avoid them in favor of squinting at these outlet’s conventional websites. Exception: The New York Times app is complete and easy, but nytimes.com remains easier.

So now it sits on the breakfast table, the Northwest Arkansas edition of the Demzette rolled with the Fayetteville zoned edition still titled the Northwest Arkansas Times. I’ll resume stowing the oblong yellow bags in the car as poop grabbers for when I take the dogs out.

Copyright 2012 Ben S. Pollock

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One reply on “The Paper’s Back”

The invisible radio in the room, er, elephant

There’s a missing paragraph, and it’s spelled N-P-R. I’ve listened to public radio 365 days a year since 1977. Worked as a news producer at a member station in 1980-81. Since 1998 KUAF-FM has been my station, even on the road in recent years using the KUAF app on my iPad.

Audio is an infinite, limited medium. The proverbial in-depth report on Congress or the Middle East can be — potentially another Murphy’s Law — 110 minutes from when you turn on Morning Edition or 80 minutes from when you click on All Things Considered. If I know I missed it, including our daily Ozarks at Large, it’s now streamable online. Of course.

It’s like posting a sign on your desk, “Back in 10 minutes” — 10 minutes from when?

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