Do you read your newspaper?

In order:
Considering the degree of hangover, or rush for time, I may only get to No. 1.
Sports - our section, every day. Sometimes I read the paper that hits my door before I go to sleep.
A1 - Especially the local stuff, and the first graf or two of wire
Metro - It's my city
Biz - Only local — I've got no money
Life - Usually while I'm on the can. Horoscope, Dagwood, Zits, Beetle Bailey, Hagar the Horrible, Dennis the Menace and so on.

 

At my previous stop in sports, I tried to read through but had to at least scan the A and B (local news) sections -- partly because news had the annoying habit of taking a story at the beginning and then passing it off to sports. So we actually did have to ask every day which section was getting, for instance, the Duke lacrosse story. (And yes, it drove me nuts.)

Now that I'm on a universal desk and in a new city, I consider it critical to read the whole paper. Gives me a feel for the writers and the area. And keeps me from asking stupid questions. ;D

 

I just look at the design, and then I toss the edition into the pile in the corner.

 

The beginning of the end of my career at USA Today was when they moved an editor into the department from the other side of the building who proudly noted that he/she (choose one) "never read the sports section."

I read it all, kids. The very damned least you can do. Really.

 

What's going on with that race anyway? Who's ahead -- the Steelers or Eagles?

 

Lynn's having trouble getting a ground game established.

 

I agree with Frank.

I read ours every morning, front to back.

Then I get online to look at five or six sites. If I can nab the competition's paper in town, I'll take a run through it as well.

Why the hell would you not want to know what's going on in your community and what's in your paper?

 

One of the great moments in the film The Paper deals with this question. Michael Keaton, playing a metro editor, comes rushing back to his office with a hot lead and has to wake up staffer Randy Quaid, who's been sleeping on the couch in Keaton's office all day. It's, like, 3 in the afternoon. Keaton asks him, "you remember so and so that we did a big story on a couple months ago?" Quaid looks up at him with a totally puzzled look on his face and says: "I don't read this newspaper."

I make it a point to read the stuff the news department does at my place because I like to be able to demonstrate I have some idea about something other than sports. Everyone assumes I don't. We once had some legal thing that was going on that was sports related and I was talking to one of our news editors about it and the name of the state's attorney for our area came up. The news person asked me, "you don't know who that is, do you?" As if, by default, I'm a sports moron and I don't know anything. I like to blow that thinking out of the water, so I read.

 

I pin my newspaper to a bulletin board every morning, step back 10 feet and look at it that way.

 

I read it off the press every night that I'm working. And of course, I cringe at all the mistakes that's bad, but not bad enough to stop the press for lest I get chewed out.

(Of course, if I let the mistakes go, I get chewed out for that and the dumbass news-side copy editors get a pass, so I can't win. Most times I just check to make sure the date's right and there are no cuss words on the cover. )

 

I don't get the paper. I haven't for about a year now... I don't feel any remorse about it. Anything I need is online and if I write something I want to save, I'll grab a copy during my monthly trip to the office...

We weren't paying for the paper so we didn't count against the circulation number. All it was was a recycling headache.