Aging with Loss: The End of an Era: No More Delivered Newspaper
Monday, December 1, 2008 at 07:30AM
We canceled our newspaper subscription. This was a harder decision for us to make than you would think. For 25 years, the newspaper was daily in our home. Ours is a moderately liberal paper and we are a moderately conservative twosome. The paper challenged our thinking, exposed us to other ways of seeing the world. It made it easy to vote. I could take the list of recommended candidates to the polls and vote for the other gal.
It was a well-written paper with informative local and world news. The sports section was beloved by my son and husband. When he wouldn’t read anything else, my son would read the sports page.
The comic page was always read in our home. My kids aged as the kids in For Better or Worse did. I like having a daily crossword puzzle to puzzle over. One I could usually finish.
The paper arrived on or about our property through ice storms and hurricanes. If for some reason, our paper wasn’t to be found, one call to customer service caused one to be delivered later in the day.
Things changed: The sports section seems to be the only section unscathed by the changes. The comics went from one column to three; the crossword became way too easy. The religion section became a religion column; the food section began to shrink.
The pictures were becoming more appropriate to page 6 of the NYPOST than our family friendly southern newspaper.
The change that made us decide to cancel is the loss of world and in-depth local overage of the news. I can get news bites from CNN and Fox News online. Our paper is buying out or is laying off the local investigative reporters and commentators. The front page sometimes is more tabloid in content that hard news. There are more ads than reporting.
We can get our world news online, by radio or on TV free. We can’t get in-depth local coverage from our local newspaper anymore. I guess I will buy USA Today occasionally for their crossword puzzle.
I will miss the way things were. Good-bye old friend...you changed and I will miss you.