Instead of a trained journalist with a broad knowledge of the affairs of the world meeting with a seasoned editorial staff to select the most important items to publish for the good of the commonwealth, I'm offered mostly drivel based on my viewing habits. To my great shame, I realize that I have brought this on myself.
Viewing photos of the royal babies is a lot more fun than coping with my dismay over pictures featuring refuges or the latest war torn area. As to ads, it didn't take much for merchants to figure out that I'm a sucker for any site featuring yarn or sewing techniques. I freely admit to being a yarnaholic. Knitting helps me keep my sanity.
Formerly, I kept abreast of the news through print editions of newspapers. The columns and the headlines were not tailored for me. Opinion sections were persuasive and well-reasoned. My overly liberial orientation was kept in check by brilliant conservative columnists such as David Brooks whose arguments added a different dimension to my thinking.
Print is expensive. On-line is not. That's why I started gathering news on-line. I'm thinking of biting the bullet and subscribing to my favorite newspaper. It's a patriotic decision. Yes, honestly!
I think we owe it to these United States to maintain a free press and we cannot if we Americans insist on "news we can use." Give me news I cannot use. Even news I don't like. How about a dose of opinions I don't agree with?
Where are the fashions I cannot wear? I would like to know about them anyway. Why is my news now only about Americans? That was not always the case.
We are living in perilous times. Staying secluded can't be a good idea.
3 comments:
I like having a print newspaper because everything isn't tailored to my likes. I often find things that are interesting that no internet heuristic would probably choose to have me read. We compromise on the cost by getting one print newspaper (a local one) and the online edition of the Los Angeles Times. We used to subscribe to print editions of both, but the LA Times has just gotten too expensive in print.
I still subscribe to the newspaper since I've started my day that way since I was old enough to read. Unfortunately, the price of our our local Phoenix paper has tripled in cost and quartered in content. But I'm like you and Sybil in that I want to see things that aren't necessarily tailored to suit my prejudices.
Sybil and Donis--I wish print newspapers didn't cost so much. But I'm going to bite the bullet and subscribe anyway. For some reason the New York Times was delivered to me FOR FREE every day for three years.
Now that it's stopped--just as mysteriously as it started--I miss it.
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