Do you read your newspaper?

[indiansnetwork]

I read maybe one or two articles but most of the stuff in the newspaper is not very interesting and old news.

 

[DyePack]

I read maybe one or two articles but most of the stuff in the newspaper is not very interesting and old news.

That's why I just look at the pictures.

 

[Starman]

Fuuuuck no.

Our paper was never any great shakes in the news department, and it's gotten much worse under our parasitic cannibalistic management, which operates the entire publication as a cow to be milked, as well as to pander to the masses with greasy grimy gobs of blood and guts, and heaping helpings of tits and ass.

Nobody's interested in actually doing a professional-quality job; they're just worried about surviving one more day until the axeman makes his next visit.

As far as learning anything in a literary sense, don't be absurd. Nobody else at our joint, as a writer, is worthy to clean out the cracker crumbs from my keyboard. I look at their shirt, and it's shirt like I was putting out in, uhhh, about 7th or 8th grade.

 

[shotglass]

That's why I just look at the pictures.

Fuuuuck no.

Our paper was never any great shakes in the news department, and it's gotten much worse under our parasitic cannibalistic management, which operates the entire publication as a cow to be milked, as well as to pander to the masses with greasy grimy gobs of blood and guts, and heaping helpings of tits and ass.

Nobody's interested in actually doing a professional-quality job; they're just worried about surviving one more day until the axeman makes his next visit.

As far as learning anything in a literary sense, don't be absurd. Nobody else at our joint, as a writer, is worthy to clean out the cracker crumbs from my keyboard. I look at their shirt, and it's shirt like I was putting out in, uhhh, about 7th or 8th grade.

... and that's the happy faction of our brethren.

 

[Riddick]

When working for a major metro, I loved reading the paper. I knew I was the weak link on the team, so reading the paper did nothing but help. But at my last joint, reading shirt in our paper where the writer constantly had errors in his lede, I just gave up.

 

[sheos]

i read it online, which doesn't make much sense because it's delivered to my door step every day and laying around the office

 

[the_rookie]

Maybe it's because I'm still young, but because I freelance for (two) monthlys, I count down the days when the finished product hits newstands!

 

[hackhack]

If you want to get past the feature retreads that pass for "enterprise" these days, read the whole paper and think about the sports implications... when communities change, the ripples hit your world in sports, and if you notice before the ME does then you'll look smart.

example: tornado/tropical storm/weather crisis hits small town. When is the next game? Often the teams/games are a microcosm of how the community is surviving.

example: overcrowding in schools leads to school expansion. a new high school is built. how will the traditions -- the mascot, school colors, fight song -- get started? there's never a homecoming game the first season.

example: two big universities you cover during football season have the same off Saturday. churches are packed because everyone wants to get married without a conflict with their favorite team and game traffic.

stretch your horizons people!! too much of sports writing is the same predictable who won, who lost bs.

and don't bench about declining readership if you can't be bothered with anything but your own section.

 

[dixiehack]

Our readers read our newspaper. That sounds obvious, but think about it -- everyone who buys the thing reads at least some of it, is interested in the world around them, is interested to the point that TV and radio aren't enough for them, and is interested enough that they pay for it. A lot of people can say they care about knowing what's going on, but our readers prove it every day by paying to read about it. There are a lot of idiots out there, but for the most part our readers aren't among them.

And then there's a percentage of the newsroom staff that doesn't read the paper. They obviously don't care what's happening in their town, but worse, they do not KNOW what's happening in their town because they don't read about it.

So what we have is a situation in which some of the people producing the newspaper are less informed and less engaged than their customers. When we're less informed than they are, when we're less connected than they are, when we have less curiousity about the world than they do, what can we possibly offer that's worth their time and money? We wonder why newspapers struggle. Well, I think this is a big part of it.

At the last place I worked, I could burn through the A section in 5 minutes or less every night. I read the 1A stories of interest (usually 2 on a good day), the editorial page, maybe the calendar of events if I had some days off coming up. But heck no, I'm not going to slog through little Suzy winning the spelling bee, or the Podunk airport authority naming a new vice president. The wire stories were stuff I read during slow times on the shift anyway, and they were always chopped to shirt in the print edition. If I truly wanted to know what was happening anywhere that was a long distance call away, I had to read the Big Metro (which I usually did 3-6 times a week).