Two words: SLOW NEWS.
I learned this phrase when I took a MOOC class from Arizona State's Dan Gillmor, who I used to read in print in the late 1990s when I lived in San Jose and read his columns in The Mercury News.
Slow news is the best news. Sitting and reading the print edition of the Sunday Times can take hours, but I take a sabbath every Sunday from the online world. (I have only a flip phone and am not on Facebook anyway.)
Unfortunately, I too often go to the computer and refresh the Times and Washington Post websites, and then look at Politico, and then, worst of all, I go on Twitter (I don't have my own account) and put in something in the search engine like "Nunberg Mueller" and get back mostly stuff that is harmful to my mental health.
Thanks for reminding me that print is best. (I am at work, so if I am at the computer, it looks as if I am working. I have the print edition of The Times on my kitchen table back at home, but if I read it at work, it would look as if I were goofing off.)
41
So here's an amusing irony - i got to this article from a link on Facebook.
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Going back to print is a little severe. Might I simply suggest turning off notifications — all of them, from every single app — on your digital devices. Next, schedule time in your day for your daily news consumption. Simple.
81
"Online, commentary preceded facts." Don't kid yourself; this happens in the NYT all the time. I can't remember how many times I've read an article in the NYT that describes he said-she said banter about a bill for paragraph after paragraph after paragraph before the article even gets to what the bill is all about. Sometimes NYT articles never get to the point, but are simply a rehash of politicians' talking points. Then there are the NYT articles that consist of nothing but a series of tweets about an issue from various social media stars, despite the fact that it has been amply demonstrated that we can never know what is real in social media postings. This is not what I expect from serious journalism. Print journalism mimics social media far more than you're admitting.
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“And reading just the paper can be a lonely experience; there were many times I felt in the dark about what the online hordes thought about the news.”
Perhaps I’m naive, but honestly, who cares?
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Social media is like gossip in a big, echoey, pitch-black room:
You don't know if what you hear is true, you have no way of knowing who is saying it, and you can't be sure of where it came from.
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#1 most emailed story right now. Interesting take. I just skimmed the article so I apologize if the author made the following point:
He writes: "Avoid Social. This is the most important rule of all."
My response: And what do you think this comment thread is?
I say it's "social". True, I haven't explicitly "friended" anyone in these comment threads or "followed" anyone. But reading them, especially the most highly rated ones, lets me know that the commenters on these pages are "my tribe" -- in a way that my Facebook and LinkedIn friends are not.
It's not that "we" all "agree" on the topics. It's that we discuss them with intelligence, insight, and civility (enforced by the NYT).
I can't count the times that I've read a NYT story, which got me thinking one way, then read the top comments, and was swayed the other way.
I've had a blog since 2003. But since I signed up for NYT $10/month a year ago, I find myself putting my thoughts in these spaces and blogging less.
Why? Because I know I'm speaking to a concentrated mass of highly intelligent people here ... subject to the NYT's crappy commenting system, where you can't search comments, you can't look at a user's comment thread on all past articles, you can't follow anyone, etc. etc.
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Home delivery of print just won´t do the trick for some of us. I read an array of European press--France, Italy, Spain, Germany--and it´s availability in digitalized form is a gift from the heavens. And for those of us of a certain age whose eyesight is less wonderful than it used to be, reading digitalized texts at 125% of normal size is as well. Finally, digitalized press has the advantage of not contributing to landfill. All in all it´s the best invention since bagels.
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I miss reading the print version of the New York Times, but the paper itself has made it nearly impossible for those living outside of big cities to get our hands on a printed copy.
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I wonder how many of the commenters actually read the article to the end. The author does mention reading news articles on digital media as a good alternative. His problem seems to involve mostly social media.
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It doesn't cost $81/mo. to turn off push notifications, deactivate your Facebook account, not use Twitter, and turn on the radio instead of cable news for background noise. Once you've done that, you just check the news once a day. Easy. Being doing it for years.
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Way to go, Farhad! I’ve been on a similar journey and appreciate what you’ve gleaned. Your article has found its way into my “soul food” file – a rare event. I’m finding it’s important to apply the slow down approach to news and social input in the rest of of my life, too. Taking time with family and friends to go deeper and not just reacting when something odd and seemingly incendiary arises with one of my teenagers, a school official’s email in my box, even the response of a stranger in the grocery store. Yes, sometimes there are genuine crises; but a frantic response will not help and usually harms. We don’t need to live in reaction to everything. There’s a Bible proverb I like, “The noble man makes noble plans and by noble deeds, he stands.” (I’m a woman – I’ll take it for all of us.) All the best with the book!
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So the point is not "print versus digital." It's "social media versus responsible journalism." I get the NYT digitally, not in print, and get all the benefits Mr. Manjoo notes, plus the ability to track issues closer to real time if I choose. Beyond that, I long ago opted out of Facebook and Twitter, and am happier for it.
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Today's newsprint paper feels just plain flimsy and weird, is awkward and cumbersome to hold, requires glasses to see the small print, is expensive, is often stolen from our urban front door, and is challenging to recycle. All of that finds me here responding digitally.
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I don't get my news from Twitter and Facebook since I don't belong to them. I don't live in New York anymore. (it's been over 50 years) I read the digital version because it is convenient although I do enjoy the few times I've read the print issue on line. I like that I got more stories to read and they were current not a day old as this digital version is.
I also read another paper in print. The biggest problem I had was inconsistent delivery. It was aggravating to call both paper's "customer service" and be told my account would be credited and a day added to my subscription. That's not why I called. I want to read the newspaper today not an extra day.
My brother and I used to deliver the Miami Herald. If we missed a subscriber the Herald would call the district manager Mrs. Holliman and she would have to run out with a copy and deliver it. And we would hear about it. Truth be told a lot of times the paper was there it wasn't where the subscriber wanted it to be and they didn't look for it. We had to be very exacting, every subscriber had specific instruction like porch only, box only and it had to be in that spot.
So I stick with digital NY Times. I dropped the other paper because it's delivery process was worse.
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I am convinced Iwould have seen Hamilton the first year , if I had continued my Times print subscription! Now I only get targeted ads. Every now and then I read the print edition and it is like reading a totally different paper. However, I like being able to skim the world’s newspapers digitally to stay up to date and not have to recycle.
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How do you feel about NPR? Seems like that would be the best of both worlds - faster but still well researched and moderate
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I read 2 print newspapers and check the NYT on line for updates and to read comments.
However, I looked up the link for the 18th school shooting. There were, in fact, 17 shootings on school grounds. Where the problem came in is implication that all the shootings were during class time and were deadly. The statistic of 17 is accurate but details give meaning. No guns belong in schools. Just because people were not hurt and schools did not go into lockdown does not mean that no shooting took place. It is sheer luck that no one was hurt.
Your implication that Everytown cooks statistics is incorrect. They define what is included and deleted the one shooting classified incorrectly.
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I grew up being a newspaper & news consumer - thanks to my folks. I'm now 61. I certainly spend time in front of a screen (here I am). What this article underscores to me is just how easy it is to get into our silos on the internet & just how much garbage and slanted news there is. Digital formats of respected sources may be dependable & I very much enjoy reading these comments to see how others think... but even with these comments I know we are generally like minded.
The internet has such wonderful possibilities but it has also lead to terrible biased & an uninformed population.
My bro in law (smart & successful) recently said he was very upset after watching the coach of a major NFL team burning an American flag & a player laughing... until someone told him it was fake. And I thought "O my God - you actually believed this even for a minute"!!!
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I Concur with Manjo; I’m glad I didn’t waste (my) time other than glancing at NYT. (As some other snide Commenters snicker about losing five minutes or so)
This article isn't telling me anything that I don't already experience every day. But I'm better than 30 years older than Mr. Manjoo. I read the NY Times online every morning. Sometimes I'll look at one of the breaking news pieces that I'm informed of via email, but mostly I ignore them. I prefer to wait till the following morning to see how those stories have held up. I don't do Twitter, Facebook, or any other instant messaging thing. I get a text once in a while from a friend though the subject usually is of a personal nature. Hardly newsworthy.
I consider myself well informed because I let myself be exposed to current events and I know how to find in-depth information to fill out the details. I'm not usually misled by any medium and I find it aggravating that some try. I will not usually allow myself to become manipulated and cannot understand why others succumb to truly fake news.
I encourage Mr. Manjoo to now take this new outlook of his to others than the readers of the NY Times. He needs to form a huge new choir of young people.
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Very interesting. Print versions of newspapers aren't available where I now live, deep in the country, but I understand the sentiment well. I turned off twitter and facebook years ago and progressively unsubscribed from sundry news and current affairs alerts. Recently I stopped my TV service as well. I primarily used it to watch sport and the occasional news programme but I found that I can do this just as well on the internet. I check the international news each morning on both US and European websites. The rest of the day is my own. The result: I have become both mentally calmer and more focused as well as much better informed. I think the digital age, wonderful as it is, has also contributed to a collective mental imbalance in society that we are too caught up with to see. Things like twitter and facebook are highly addictive but our minds become frayed from overstimulation. We are always wanting more, and newer. If we do not handle the digital media with discipline and discrimination it handles us. We become cut off from reality. Our lives are full to the brim but it is a febrile and superficial sort of engagement with life. Until you take a break from it it's hard to see this though.
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Well, can't get that 5mins back...darn.
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Thanks for this. I can't imagine life without the print version of the NYT - no "click bait" articles, no "breaking news" updates - just news. [Unfortunately I had to go on line to leave this comment :>)]
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I wonder what type of newsprint paper that fox and friends would look like.
My guess the closest is the national inquirer.
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Oh please, the people that will switch from digital to paper are the ones least susceptible to the "fake news".
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I used to love print, especially the NYT on Sunday morning. And I refuse to do the crossword online. I get someone who doesn't do the crossword to save their magazine sections for me. But that's about the extent to which I miss print. I don't miss the newsprint all over my hands, the clutter all over the house, the wasted paper (especially from the sections I didn't read). I sure as heck don't miss having to walk out in the cold, the dark, the rain to retrieve the paper from the end of the driveway (Manjoo must live in an apartment). On top of that, I love the NYT interactives. The avalanche interactive was beyond brilliant. The added content on "the man who opened the [Berlin Wall] gate" brought me to tears. And lately, I lover those red banner breaking news headlines. Sometimes they are breaking BAD news, but sometimes good news and I am LIVING for the breaking news red banner that says INDICTED.
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I admit that I do get some new from social media feeds, but always look at the source. I would give a higher rating to a Boston Globe or Washington Post or Wall St Journal article than I would some of the clearly partisan sources from the left or the right that keep popping up. I do read my NY Times online subscription and occasionally indulge in buying the Sunday hard-copy paper to remember what it was like to indulge in lying around reading that on Sundays after brunch and before kids. That is supplemented with hard copy subscriptions to the Economist, Atlantic Monthly, The Week, the New Yorker, and Vanity Fair, and daily listening to NPR and the BBC on the radio while driving. Many of my peers seem to get their new from TV, and i definitely feel like the print form helps give a broader perspective. I have to stop myself from getting sucked in to the online comments sections. I love reading incredibly thoughtful and well-written comments, but have to stop when I get to some of the paranoid crazy conspiracy trolls as I start getting apoplectic. Not healthy. Thank you NY Times for being there now more than ever.
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A paper enables me to chew on the news before digesting .
Never gulp what you think is your news.
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Unreliable delivery of the print edition of the Times forced me online where the digital team implores visitors to read the paper "in a new way." I stubbornly resisted, clicking instead on "Today's Newspaper" option which organizes the day's stories in the traditional way that Mr. Manjoo, the Times Tech columnist, now extolls. It spares me constant distraction and the uncertainty of missing something in a constantly refreshing environment.
Irony anyone?
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Since this article is in the New York Times, I can't help but think that this piece is more than a little-serving on behalf of the Times. But, interesting.
2
the new season of Black Mirror should include an episode where Buzzfeed is only available in print.
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This is exactly why I subscribe to daily new briefs from CNN, The Week, and the NYT. It's only one a day, and it's distilled through professional process.
As for social media -are you kidding? Most people on social media are children, either actually or in behavior. I'm an old cynic, I know, but behaviorally, most social participants are idiots - cowards who hide behind their online anonymity to spew screed at the rest of us, especially the idiots who believe them. I wouldn't want them as personal friends, or even acquaintances, so why would I value their ravings? I'm much rather rely on people I don't know, but whom I'd be proud to associate with if the occasion arose.
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Newspapers leave ink on your hands.
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And it's harder to do the "subway fold." NYT used to be 8 column width, now six and five. The sixers, you can fold back, flip to a page, fold up from the bottom, and read 1/4 of the page at a time, standing or sitting. You can't fold into five columns! This was not thought through! How do I show off my NY creds?
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You sound like a health teacher advocating for "abstinence-only" sex.
There is no going back to the old ways of consuming news so your plan of "just turn off your notifications and read once a day" is so hypocritical when you get paid by the New York Times who sends me and millions of others pings multiple times a day to promote their articles.
Here's an idea, if you are part of the problem and you have sway as a journalist, be part of the solution. Ask NYT and other newspapers to stop sending so many notifications. Get a bunch of journalists together and build something better. You clearly don't think it's a problem worth solving because you, as the privileged journalist in SF that you are, think it's perfectly fine to "unplug" while offering mild advice to everyone about how to offer other privileged people how to "unplug" as opposed to doing anything more systematic to change the fact.
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What I got out of this article:
You were stupid enough to believe everything you read online is true, and though you've come to the realization that faith was ill placed, you're now stupid enough to believe that everything you read in the news paper is true.
Cool story.
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We should stop killing trees if we can.
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It's the difference between the exclamation point and the ...
My only critique of Mr. Manjoo's article is that he neglected to mention how wonderful a real newspaper smells.
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congrats for having insight and wherewithal to try it the old fashion way. you described perfectly how I consume mine.
nyt, wapo, guardian, my hometown paper, a few others. sprinkle in intercept, cnet, occasional msn, major news channels, buzzfeed even and for a laugh, tmz.
NEVER social media, tweeter or over my dead body only, faceplant.
nice and slow, but I'm still better informed, know more details (thx nyt) and have luxury of thinking on my own, not having my opinion handed to me by russia today, I mean faux noos.
these are trying times for this democracy. we have to outlive the virus at 1600 pennsylvania. only thru informed debate and perseverance will we preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the US. somebody mouthed those words last january but dosent have a clue from here to jesus how to do it or why.
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Yes. But no mea culpa from Manjoo for his decade-long boosterism of all things digital and online?
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My three: Read it (read:red. Ha!). Need it. Will do it.
I absolutely agree. I cannot watch the TV news channels, with the exception of the John Oliver, Trevor Noah, and Stephen Colvbert (now that they are news analysts). The televised news is too full of speculation, interruption, half-baked thinking, and sensationalism. Not that the news isn't breathtaking, but I prefer to ingest it at my own speed, and be spared the adrenaline rush of panting newscasters.
Very interesting article and great thought experiment. I get my news online only, but never through social media, and I do not watch television. I never understood how people could possibly trust anything on Facebook and the like. There is no accountability. Television news I find exceedingly annoying. If there were thoughtful commentary I would consider it, but there's not.
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While I actually prefer to read print newspapers, The Times and other major papers do not deliver to places like rural Vermont where I live. Without a digital subscription I would be unable to read such insightful articles as Mr. Manjoo's.
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Well said. Should be shouted from the rooftops.
The Washington Post has a nice iPad app that gives you what the print newspaper looks like and you flip at the side to turn the pages. They like it because it also shows ads. I like it because you get the layout of the paper and you don’t have to guess your way through web scroll.
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Tv isn’t news, it’s entertainment.
And any tv that seems like news is just talking about what was in the morning paper.
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This is a brilliant take on how the news business has become distorted by excessive commentary, talking heads and a lack of fact-checking. Speed kills.
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As an admitted news junkie, I read 8 to 10 online news sources each day, for breakfast and lunch (which are solo activities), having a print newspaper is much better, and there is both more depth to the reporting and a surprising amount of content that just isn't online.
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I feel sorry for you that you relied mainly on the main stream media newspapers. I'll bet you learned nothing about the advantages of government run health care which much of the modern world has in place, nor or the built in huge weakness of capitalism,with its lying "trickle down concept" and its authoritarian, non-democratic rigor and its corruption of payoffs to our politicians resulting in plutocracy and huge vicious disparities in wealth. And all the other wonderful ideas you missed because your newspapers are owned by capitalists who cannot get sidetracked with the truth. Truth is sacred and you will not get it from your MSM newspapers.
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Neil Postman said it all in his book on today's journalism - "Amusing Ourselves to Death." The title says it all. Highly recommend.
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You get what you pay for. If you're getting for free, you *are* the merchandise. There's no free lunch. Lol
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The points which author makes of reading newspaper and staying away from news on social media I could not agree more!
We subscribe daily to paper NY Times. This is one of the very few reliable informative sources news, opinions. With virtual, altered "breaking news" in written, picture or tv/movie format flooding the internet we rely on you NYT to keep us informed. And I thank you for this.
I do worry about general demos who does not access the reliable news and instead gets "news" from demagogues.. Will this lead us to "dark ages" and endanger further the civilization...
I hope not...but I see paranoia of misinformed people too often now.
Quite comical, this piece, in historical context. Some of us have been getting the great majority of our news from print newspapers for the last 50 years or so. I get the Times online only because it's cheaper and delivery of the actual paper has for years been unreliable. But I still read the "paper" just like a newspaper, for about 45 minutes every single morning. Bravo to Mr. Manjoo, who's experience confirms our worst fears about what it means to get "news" from social media.
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There's another aspect to this. When you turn off the ceaseless party-line of chatter/news breaking into your personal perception-space, you find yourself in a more continuous, realtime interaction with the living, breathing world available to all your senses as a whole. You are more available to absorb the rich, dimensional sensations of being human, integrating information and context and grounded perspective in a manner, and at speeds, that foster understanding.
Not only are you more available to the people who are actually around you, it supports you being more available to yourself.
So when you do get real news, it's being taken in not only by your data-processing circuitry....it can be ascribed scale and consideration, and it can have a chance to be processed with a more wholistic consciousness, since you are no longer merely being assaulted with other's reactions mixed with data, but are being present and participatory, and with reasoning based on your experience of being self-determined.
There's much to be said for integrating and giving value to information in the solitude of your mind before engaging in a herd-wave of reactivity. Being conscious and being reactive are not the same thing.
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I also prefer the news from the actual paper. The NYTimes should make the daily newspaper available on the app. That way we can really see the stories that were fit to print, instead of all the minor updates stories as they unfold in the “top stories” section.
Come on NYTimes: put in a section titled “today’s newspaper” that only displays what’s in the print version.
Thank you!
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Yes yes yes. I am so deeply enjoying the NYTimes lately. Thanks, all.
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There’s a simple solution. Just accept the fact that what you read online are just snapshots of stories. Taking anything as fact read online is dangerous. Just look at what has happened politically in the past two years. The Zuckerburgs of the world can’t save us. They are part of the problem. The author shows that we can change things ourselves.
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Thanks Farhad, one comment though: for me living in France it’s hard to get the real NYT, we get an international version of the NYT. That’s why I rely on my digital NYT subscription to read the news and in particular the long read for which the Times’ reporters are acclaimed.
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This ex-journalist news junkie reads Philly Sunday print edition (it's a shadow of its former Knight-Ridder self), daily NYT and Philly online, Rachel and Lawrence on MSNBC plus dips into Alternet and SFGate. No Facebook or other "social" media accounts, but WHYY-FM subscriber for NPR, reads a book a week MOL. The references to other media on Rachel and Lawrence mirror Mr. Manjoo's suggestions, so add New Yorker, if only to get whatever Jane Mayer writes. I'd add Skeptical Inquirer, and any books by Richard Dawkins you haven't finished.
Very insightful. Depth over speed. I prefer plant based news too. Mo choices, mo in-depth. However, Digital provides reader responses , including ones own which can b quite meaningful. Gov subsidy of plant based news would b good investment for health of our society.
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"And reading just the paper can be a lonely experience"? Lonely? I find it quite calming and peaceful. I guess if you are one of the herd that can't stand the sound of silence or constantly need outside commotion and input then yes, I guess it would seem lonely to those people. Sad.
Thank you, Mr. Manjoo. I am a NY Times digital subscriber. But I found that I was only skimming the news. For the past month, I have been buying the print version about 3-4 times per week. I am reading articles much more closely, and I am also reading articles I would not have read in the digital edition. I also read the Economist, but only buy a new issue when I have thoroughly worked through the preceding one. Which means I am not buying it weekly. My feeling is it is far better to be thorough than timely. Digitization seems to be thinning our grasp of issues. Thank you for your interesting perceptions!
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I love print papers, but I too find them clumsy. Forget reading the paper anywhere but a cleared off kitchen table. The Times should consider an alternative, smaller size format, as all the major newspapers in the Netherlands have done in the last 5 years. A more practical, portable, and convenient size ensures continued relevance in a world of digital media.
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I've been doing the print version of the times pretty much since 5th grade ( I'm now in my 60s . All the above is true but with the dropping rates of print subscription, I like other commentators can't get it reliably delivered anymore.
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A friend of mine believes that if he doesn't see it on the televised news, then it just isn't true or news. No, that individual doesn't watch Fox at all, but rather Channels 7 and 2. Perhaps there can be an article about those who refuse to read newspapers, but only get their news via the television.
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Awesome article but the irony is that I read it on the NYT app. For what it’s worth I used to subscribe to the paper but it got too unwieldy to carry.
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I would love to switch to print, but that $81+ a month is just too dear -- and that's just one paper. Ah, someday. Meanwhile I'll come directly to the NYT or NPR site for news, and skip the breaking stories until they've had a chance to settle.
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I have been unable to deal with much of the online world. While I subscribe to the NYTimes online edition, I treat it like a print edition. This article explains to me why everyone else is so crazy.
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Think of it as going to a restaurant where there a dozen good, well thought-out entrees on the menu, vs. one where there are 75 over-artsy, ingredient-laden (vs. simple) dishes geared more toward impressing you with the sizzle than the steak. Where would you be more happy?
Here's my news-consuming formula: Two core major newspaper subscriptions plus my local paper, all online. A good Sunday paper in print, to make fuller sense of the week. And when you're on the road or in your kitchen, NPR (my bias as I spent a good chunk of my journalism career there and in public radio). If you want, add one great weekly publication like (but by no means limited to) The Economist.
From those sources, for about an hour a day, you will be directed to much of the best stuff being written or reported elsewhere - for instance this week the NYT directed me to Jane Mayer's great New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele, author of the so-called Steele Dossier investigating Trump.
The rest is just noise - too many ingredients that, ultimately, make the meal far less satisfying and far more indigestion-inducing. And you don't go to a restaurant to get indigestion, do you?
Stick to journalism's equivalent of good restaurants
1
I like print newspapers. The problem is, there are too much information I don't need. My temporary solution is a Digital Subscribe of NY Times + Printer. Hopefully someday in future I can do this easier.
There’s one other big advantage to reading a print newspaper page by page......you seen stories that you wouldnt have looked for on your own.. i get papers both on line and delivered. I read the headline stories on line in the morning then skim the paper at lunch. I always find entertaining and informative stories when i do that.
3
A few weeks ago I happened to be in an office waiting room with a large wall TV tuned to CNN. As time rolled by, I noticed the chyron was always "BREAKING NEWS" . Didn't matter what had happened, Hope Hicks resigns; today is Tuesday; stock market dropped 420 points; it's now 4:25 pm.
All day everyday, it's BREAKING NEWS.
2
Few articles in the Times make me smile, but this one does. I hope I live long enough (I'm 72) to see people revert to the printed page.
1
I love this article, even if I did read it on-line. So true.
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Two thousand years ago, Tacitus recorded the simple observation of this article: "Truth is confirmed by inspection and delay; falsehood by haste and uncertainty.
"
The fundamental irony of the "Information Age" should have been obvious, in retrospect: The technologies it provides predominately serve to disseminate disinformation. The fake news crises is easily understood as a consequence of 'faster' being essentially an antonym of 'better'.
1
I wish Facebook would go back to its roots of helping college students to find sex partners. As for Twitter, it has no purpose (other than being a cheap Facebook knockoff), so there is nothing to go back to.
Oh wait, I take back my comment on Facebook. Where else can I go for such easy access to cat videos?
1
I love reading. I used to read women’s mags but so many have gone under, and, perhaps I’ve grown up. I used to want to read about love and clothes but now I simply want interesting stories. Last Saturday Benjamin Weiser had “Bright Light Dimmed” about a homeless woman. It was just so diverting and well written. This is why I pay $23 a month CAD for a NYT subscription! It’s not about “the news” or Trump or the economy. It’s about entertainment but high quality entertainment that leaves you feeling sated afterwards.
I subscribe to The Economist, The New Yorker and the NYTs, as well as supporting The Guardian. I don’t do this to be “well-informed”. I do it for the joy of it.
Maybe if people aren’t reading newspapers (because they’re available on-line, the same as the paper edition) it has more to do with their time and the product. Maybe the polarization turns off huge numbers of people. I don’t read about Trump — it’s depressing and everything I need to know can be gleaned from the headlines. Some of the columnists here are so far to the left, so attacking of men (or freedom of speech or perceived bigots) that I feel depressed and even dirty after reading them. They are certainly not why I pay for a subscription to a foreign newspaper.
P. S. I like that new girl — Bari Weiss? Great column yesterday.
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Change the way you think by changing the way you link.
Enough said.
Nice piece.
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Reading The NYT while getting my haircut, the stylist said “wow, people still do this?” How to describe the pleasure of curling up with the Sunday paper to a digital generation.
1
I was a NYTs print subscriber for more than 25 years. It was a luxury, but the cost got to be to prohibitive. I miss the newspaper. There's something to turning the pages and being captivated by an article.
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I remember during the war in Vietnam that I had to stop watching TV news altogether because it was so agonizing. Daily death counts and injury counts. Gritty, black and white images of young soldiers trudging through mud. Explosions. Screams.
Since the start of the 2016 presidential campaign, I couldn't wait for it to be over so I wouldn't have to keep hearing noise from that bombastic buffoon. Of course, the buffoon won, and there's no getting away from his idiocy now. But I stay away from the visceral, The "being handed" the news as it pours forth.
I read print one or two days a week, but mostly read the NYT online. As Farhad noted, it's less unwieldy than print, and I can adjust the size of the font to accommodate my eyes.
2
The internet broke the world. En toto.
Having been the editor of my high school newspaper and my father having been a LIFE magazine photographer, I do my part to keep the media alive;
1) Print subscriptions: San Diego Union-Tribune, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Sunday New York Times, Time magazine and several others;
2) Digital subscriptions: Chicago Tribune, Washington Post.
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Nice if you can get delivery service that works. We can't.
1
This is helpful. I read NYT every morning online. Over time I have found the paper to be repetitive. tomorrow's paper will have much of the same stuff as today. In depth analysis involving extensive research.is sorely lacking. I would like to read investigative reporting on things that may have taken weeks to compile. Every day Trump does another inane thing. Do I really need to know about it? Further analysis will surely follow later or someone's response to it. Basic trends in the US no longer surprise me. NYT, wake me up when it's over.
1
Thank you for this. I recently inherited a subscription to the plant-based version of the New York Times. After one day, we decided to continue the subscription indefinitely. It's a totally different experience. Plus, I love doing the crossword. To any online-only readers: Try it for a week - you won't want to go back. If you are worried about the $$, think of it as a worthy investment in democracy.
8
I get the digital version of the NYT because the print is too expensive. I am in CA and the print version for Sunday alone was nearly $50 a month. I prefer print and think I read a more diverse range of articles with the print version because I read it front to back, but digital all access is $20 a month. Cost of living is very high here and $10 for a Sunday paper is just too expensive for most people.
I hate to say that the SF Chronicle is not a great paper in my mind. They barely have any original reporting and are obsessed with showing high priced houses for sale rather that actual local news. I disengaged from them a long time ago. The website is a tabloid.
8
One minor problem with print news: You are at the mercy of the underpaid delivery service. I get the Tampa Bay Times (winner of 12 Pulitzer Prizes!) and the Wall Street Journal in print. At least once a month, and usually once every other week, they fail to deliver one or both papers. I call. They apologize. They promise to redeliver. They don't.
3
Sadly that problem is not limited to the Tampa Bay area or the USA. I had the same problem in Manitoba, Canada with the Winnipeg Free Press and after several subscriptions, over several years finally gave up due to non-delivery. I receive the NYT as an electronic version and am very happy with it
1
I had delivery service a long time ago. One time they had a new driver and he drove on the lawn a few times.
Great article. I am a digital subscriber that limits my NYT reading to once a day via the 'Today's Paper' applet. That way I don't miss anything.
It provides all the benefits cited here, is better for the environment, and leaves my fingers clean!
6
You also get the crossword puzzle which makes you smarter and delays the onset of senility. That value is reflected in its online cost that you fail to factor into your cost-benefit analysis. If you do some physical exercise during some of your new found free time you are bound to come to the conclusion that print is good for you. I get mine at a place you may never have heard of called a "newsstand". Astonishingly you will find even more printed material there. Even in the bright sunshine of California (or do you live in The City, you know, San Francisco?) the technological miracle of print enables you to read outdoors (and make vitamin D) in broad daylight. Amazing!
3
Research has shown that human brains are quite elastic and that people can change the way they think by merely changing the way they think. Their values can morph by changing the environment and messages they choose to listen to regardless of the integrity of the messages. We need to hit the pause button and think deeply about whats important to us individually and for society; and make decisions more thoughtfully and slowly. Most cable news, and online news feeds through mobile apps and social media want your eyes and minds, they compete with each other by creating sensational experiences that are generally not supported by facts and that in the fullness of time can be shown to be untrue and a waste of time. thank you Farhad for this thoughtful article.
2
My favorite point in this list of good and obvious points is the one about time and memory, a day complete, a thing contained, comprehendible and personally manageable and somehow meaningful in the marking of one's own life in the experience of reading a daily print newspaper. How very true.
As I often say, I look forward to the day when admitting you use Facebook in polite company will be right down there with admitting in a cloud of shame you smoke.
2
If you don't want to futz with the hard-copy newspapers and then have to dispose of them after reading, another option to consider is Kindle. The New York Times on Kindle is a great bargain. It yields upwards of 2-3 hours of happy reading every day....and you can set the font to whatever size is easiest on your eyes! I am still trying to quit Facebook...but it is (literally) a "sticky wicket." The Times recently published an article by Catherine Price, which I liked so well I decided to buy her book: "How to Break Up With Your Phone." Highly recommended!
3
I have warned my husband about not looking at articles too soon. Ironically, he's a newspaper man. We learned this when a local story hit here several years ago. Immediately, the comments in the local paper begin to pile up. For the first day, the comments were the usual onslaught of people who don't know what they're talking about pontificating. By the second day, however, people who had some insight into the situation, people who actually knew what they were talking about, began to comment online. When I pointed this out to my husband, he was stunned. But this is what happens. The loonies come out right away, and the reasonable, thoughtful people come out the day after that. Never look at comments on breaking news!!!
2
That is why I start my day with the NYT and leapfrog to Post, Guardian, Le Monde, and sometimes a few others to check the pulse of the world outside of the USA bubble. A bit of TV news mostly for comedy, but sometimes there are 'nuggets' worth listening to. And the Conversation. The rest is a wasteland (literally).
2
I wish there was a way to combine print and digital. The convenience of my tablet, with the timing and layout of the daily printed paper. But the NYT doesn’t have that option. The Washington Post does, which is why I start my day with the print version of that paper on my tablet. Thank God for that!
1
The only problem is I need my news immediately. i took Brian Tracys advice before the World Trade Center bombings and avoided the news. He said that reading the news was unnecessary and negative and you'd be informed of important events somehow, usually by other people. From this experience, I found I didn't have a grasp of the depth of what was happening. I knew it was bad, but I was trivializing what was happening which I think was very dangerous. I also wasn't as emotionally involved with what was happening. I was getting a superficial understanding of the news. I think this had a very bad effect on me, and I came to regret that I didn't follow the news enough about the World Trade Center bombing. Also, I'm in New York City and I was in physical danger that I should be aware of immediately. Ever since then, I think news is very important, and want it as quickly as possible. I want to know current events as quickly as possible, which can help me influence current events as quickly as possible. However, reading from print is usually more enjoyable, I've found. Its easier to look at in a way, and you can read it without electricity so its more portable in a way, and I like reading books more than ebooks. I find it easier to find things in books in a way because you can just flip to the page, and although technology is great sometimes it can be slow, or inconvenient to scroll through.
1
I really don't understand the problem.
I read all my news online and still manage to have a life. It true I don't read every word of the NYT or WP or WSJ or even Brightbart but have them available at my fingertips if I do want to follow up on an article.
I can watch the network news channels as fast as I want. I record them all and fast forward to what interests me. I get news alerts on my PC and my phone all day long and find I can dismiss them with a flick of my wrist or open and read the news completely if I want. I have a set of podcasts from some of the best thinkers in the world today and can pick and choose what they offer
I get text messages from the political groups I am a part of, tweets from people around the world that I communicate with and exchange ideas and comments on my own website.
In short, I'm wired in and would not have it any other way. I really appreciate the options I have to join the world conversation that would not have been remotely possible back in the '30s when I was born.
2
After reading this article, I am completely willing to take the same media diet. I miss the days in highschool when my news source was The Guardian newspaper front to back. Unfortunately, I cannot afford to subscribe to the various print editions. What's a millennial to do?
1
This is a meaningless exercise. Even in the pre-digital age no one who was truly interested in the news would limit his or her sources to print. Back then one would watch the evening news, and maybe listen to the radio news shows. Wemtook in several sources of reporting, and tried to sort out what was true. Fake news, rumors and errors in reporting aren’t new. Even in the “pure” news days those more fluid, non-print news sources would occasionally run false reports and rumors, and would follow up with a correction. Remember how 9/11 was reported, raw and largely unfiltered, on television? Remember how many rumors were reported as fact? Sure, social media can muddy the waters, when it comes to breaking news, but I think I am able to filter out the muck pretty well. I like having the flow of regular, live updates from many sources — as the news happens — and reading a well-reported summary of the next day.
1
I’m a digital subscriber of NYT as well as the Sunday print edition. I also supplement my daily news consumption with the Washington Post digital edition. These are both great organizations that produce news and commentary with reporters, columnists, editors, copy editors, photographers... And on....
Social, on the other hand, is a hive of angry bees with A.D.D.
CNN changed everything during Desert Storm. Remember reporters under their hotel beds as missiles rained down?
All news, all the time is exhausting.
A 24-hour news cycle is more human and more in rhythm with life.
1
I quit Facebook and Twitter as a New Year’s resolution and I haven’t looked back. I read the news digitally with my subscriptions to various newspapers. It is much more relaxing than getting my news from social media. If I want commentary, sometimes I read Twitter online. If I want snark commentary, I read Wendy’s Twitter account!
3
I use FB to disseminate news, using it to post items from the NY Times or other good sources. If a story is particularly significant, I may even "cut and paste" it, so that folks who don't have access can read it.
1
The only problem is I need my news as fast as possible. I took Brian Tracys advice before the World Trade Center bombings and avoided the news. He said that reading the news was unnecessary and negative and you'd be informed of important events somehow, usually by other people. From this experience, I found I didn't have a grasp of the depth of what was happening. I knew it was bad, but I was trivializing what was happening which I think was very dangerous. I also wasn't as emotionally involved with what was happening. I was getting a superficial understanding of the news. I think this had a very bad effect on me, and I came to regret that I didn't follow the news enough about the World Trade Center bombing. Also, I'm in New York City and I was in physical danger that I should be aware of immediately. Ever since then, I think news is very important, and want it as quickly as possible. I want to know current events as quickly as possible, which can help me influence current events as quickly as possible. However, reading from print is usually more enjoyable, I've found. Its easier to look at, in a way, you can read it without electricity so its more portable, in a way, and I like reading books more than ebooks. I find it easier to find things in books, in a way, because you can just flip to the page, and although technology is great, sometimes it can be slow, or inconvenient to scroll through.
1
I'm reading NYT today on my laptop--my wife and I were to travel to NY City yesterday for a long weekend jazz, shows and catching up with friends. The storm cancelled our flights. But our daily Times was suspended until Sunday AM! I'll survive for a couple more days, but the act of "newsing" online--even from the Times--is different than "newsing" in print In addition to taking my time each AM to absorb the news I read, I also don't write comments to articles when I read the paper version every morning in part because I'm not distracted by the comments button. I read more each day in print than I would if it were on my screen. No Facebook feeds, no twitter. NYT, NPR, PBS. Slow, methodical, careful, thoughtful and literate. I'm hoping some of that comes through when I discuss things with other people.
1
Another benefit to print is to avoid the algorithm that puts you into a condition of wondering if the articles you are being shown first and highlighted were personalized based on your past reading habits, clicks, location, etc.--or are trending among everyone online--or were chosen by a more traditional editorial judgement based on a criteria of importance.
For example, I now get recommendations of "hot trending" stories on the Firefox Browser's "Pocket"--and they are interesting and well done, but it is disorienting and disconcerting to not know "why" I am being shown these particular articles. I like the fact that the NY Times print newspaper "organizes the world" for me--it gives me a foundation to then do my own "customization" based on what I then want to seek out, not on what an algorithm assumes I want or should see--or even worse, not knowing if there is an algorithm at work--or not!
And this is WHY I don't have a SMART PHONE and WHY I have a subscription (albeit digital) to the NY TIMES. I read articles...I THINK about things. I have NEVER been on Twitter, use FB essentially for saying HI to a few friends and relatives and for posting THOUGHTFUL articles on issues of the day or reading those posted by my 'friends'. I don't understand the rest of it, am disgusted not only by the POTUS but by his incomprehensible, to me, use of Twitter. I don't get it. Well, I'm old...I"m educated...and I learned to read and think as a young person. That doesn't go away with age..it only gets better.
2
I very much appreciate the sentiment of this article, but isn't this a luxury of people who can afford/choose their news outlets and media. I'm thinking about all of the people who live in areas where they can't get print papers, or have to rely on their phones to connect them to the world - what would you recommend for them... no news at all?
2
“Real life is slow; it takes professionals time to figure out what happened, and how it fits into context. Technology is fast. Smartphones and social networks are giving us facts about the news much faster than we can make sense of them, letting speculation and misinformation fill the gap.”
In other words, digital technology seduced us into voluntarily chaining ourselves to a cybernetic Plato’s cave. And how could Plato discern the dissonance between the forms/reality we actually perceive and their derivative concepts, e.g., data/news, we claim to grasp?
Biggest pain for print was disposing of the paper. I sometimes cut and paste articles online into a text file and then convert it to a podcast which I can listen to on a run, in the gym or commuting.
We'd love to get the newspaper in print! We hated the fact that the home delivery service in our area was so bad that if we got the newspapers (The New York Times and our local daily paper) delivered without problems, it was the exception, not the rule. After years of problems, we gave up and went digital. Getting news digitally can seem chaotic and unending. Changing that will take some discipline on our parts.
1
Great advice. Add to that meditation and creative endevers and you make for a very balanced human in the time of this administration.
2
I get the digital edition, home delivery is out of the question, (about 20hrs flying time, only, between here and LA, only god knows when it would arrive if I could order it).
JS from Seattle, makes a very good point with which I totally agree with. A paper version more more easily allows you to stumble across news articles you would probably miss.
I get the NYT, the Guardian, (the Fin, look it up) and read/watch/listen to the ABC (not that one, the Australian national broadcaster) because I want the News. To me it is important to avoid, "the insane, opinionated and often inaccurate feed of breaking new on social, cable news, and online alerts." ( thanks, Cliff Lewis, Cleveland, OH). And, I pay for it (well the ABC is done via taxes) because I believe in quality journalism.
1
Perhaps there could be an option to view a version of the digital times that updates 2x a day, say 4am and 4pm. While one can effectively do that now by deciding when to view the website a 2x a day update option would help suppress the sense of endlessly breaking news.
Very insightful article. I've been reading the NYT print edition since high school. I love the smell of ink on my hands and the relaxed nature of receiving news that I can choose myself
1
I try to get my NYT digital feed from the "Today's Paper" function instead of the mobile feed or web home page. It narrows the focus, and I'm grateful to have the option.
1
I'm glad there's digital access to the world's best newspapers. Now my home is not filled with articles I used to cut out and store on the off chance I might want to examine them again at some vague future date. Mind you, my computer is now stuffed with that sort of item, but I can delete rather than fill the recycling bin.
1
An interesting and thoughtful article, whose core thesis is that we need to take control of our news feed. I completely agree. Mr. Manjoo chose to do that, experimentally, by forswearing digital media in favor of print. Let me speak in favor of digital. I subscribe to the online versions of two newspapers, The New York Times and The Washington Post. Both are professional, trustworthy papers. Having them on my phone, in my pocket, connects me to current events with an immediacy and a convenience that print media cannot provide. And I get the same depth of coverage. I do worry about limited perspective, which is why I enjoy the Times articles that survey opinions across the political spectrum on major topics.
I'm not a media socialite. I don't Tweet and I'm not on Facebook. Reliance on either source for news is deeply misplaced. Perhaps I miss something, but it's probably of lesser value (or so I rationalize). Abstention is how I've chosen to limit the noise.
That, ultimately, is the point of the article: Make a choice, stick with it, and reduce the randomness and superficiality in your life - but do so intentionally and hopefully with an open mind.
This makes some interesting points. But it also assumes that print media isn't just as agenda driven, opinionated and propagandist as rolling news when it often is. The Daily Mail, Sun, Express, Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Independent etc. - none of them are in the business of objectively reporting the news. It's more or less all opinion and narrative framing. Most print media is owned by the billionaire class, as are most TV news channels. This inevitably distorts the framing.
While the problems of social media news gathering are obvious, at the same time it also allows credible alternative news sources with no allegiance to media barons or corporate power to shine a light on the bigger picture.
The problem, in my view, is not the pervasiveness of technology and social media or what that does to people's perception of the world around them, but the absence of critical thinking skills in the general population. There's definitely a case to be made for educating people to be better equipped to transcend their own and other's biases and distinguish between fact and fiction when absorbing information.
Bu not doing that and just limiting yourself to corporate print media to try and cut out the nonsense is clearly a backwards counter productive approach, in my view. They are often the worst offenders.
1
The only Twitter I've ever read is from the quoted Twitters on my digital newspapers - the New York Times, and the L.A. Times. And I studiously refuse to look at anything on Facebook other than my own page or my friends' pages. Here in Idaho Falls the daily print edition of the NYT is not available on a daily basis so I must rely on the digital edition.
1
What was life changing for me was stopping reading the news entirely, except for my neighborhood blog. If you read Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman you will probably be inclined to do the same. (And the only reason I read this article was because my husband sent me a link to it.)
1
I began reading the Times when I was 10...following the Yankees in the early 1960s...and have read the print edition since then when lived in Pittsburgh, Boston, and Providence. It’s a routine for me that probably makes sense to one else. There’s nothing better than having that Sunday Times sections piled up next to an easy chair for my morning perusal. I also read the Times online, but do not find that same kind of comfort, as someone else has curated the page for me. Sometimes a story that’s on the front page of the print edition is buried at the bottom of the web edition and wading through Sundays is almost painful. So, I will stick with both, but has there been any though given to putting the print edition online?
1
I am a huge fan of NPR, but my new favorite domestic news is CSPAN radio. The best part - Primary sources (diverse subjectsa wider spread of opinions (at this point a reality check that includes thoughtful dissenting views from my own is my personal resistance to blind partisan polarization).
2
Judging from my Facebook friends, I'm one of the few people (I often like the ONLY person) who always keeps wearily clicking through a story until I finally get to the original media source that bothered to report on it in the first place.
3
Excellent research and article. Simple, common sensical approach and conclusions highlighting what any thinking person (left, center, right, rich, poor, black, white, etc etc) would appreciate. Thanks.
1
Print is self contained and does not have click bait. As a result, reading print has an end point whereas digital media with their links are open ended and invite distraction.
1
Avoiding social media for my news, though I read online newspapers, provides for a broader world view rather than just focusing on what you "like". Good article!
1
I like the digital paper because it doesn't pile up because I am trying to read the whole paper. That said, I read the NYTimes and have limited my TV news viewing to a morning and evening show. Many times in 24/7 coverage they are speculating. That's not news.
1
Isn't the issue about turning off certain sources of online news rather than turning off all sources of online news? So, I can see turning off Twitter (which I have not ever turned on) and other invasive forms of "push" news. I do read the NY Times online and I don't think the online NY Times is terribly different than the print version of the NY Times. Also, I do wax for the days of a lazy Sundays with coffee and the print form of the paper, but I've grown to appreciate the online version and perhaps a tree that I have saved.
I am a member of the 3% who get news in print - and I believe based on my own experiment that I, too, am happier and better informed. I eschewed TV news 25 years ago and have not missed it for one second. Here’s to facts, revealed with time and care!!
As a paperboy in the 1960s and 1970s, I read the news at 4:30 a.m., long before my parents and the rest of the neighborhood got to digest "the latest." There were and still are times when "breaking news" is better covered by digital media, but when it comes to digesting and synthesizing lots of information, plus weeding out the paranoia and wag-the-dog, as Manjoo points out, newspapers are still superior when they have actual journalists. This is the part that's missing from Manjoo's analysis. The medium isn't the complete message. Well trained journalists also matter, as does having an infrastructure and administrators willing to follow the story wherever it leads. That too is part of the problem. I live in Portland, where the Oregonian used to be a really smart paper. Now it's owned by conservatives who have turned it into a shabby tabloid with second hand reporters with axes to grind. Paper, in itself, is not the answer.
1
Can’t we revert to accessing the print copy with good user interface online without up to the minute changes? I would pay for that.
1
A fundamental read, albeit to put these times in perspective or at least give them one. As much as climate change is altering the planet at high risk, the news are getting lost in its numeric translation and with it humanity's markers.
Ha ha - His choice of publications (NYT, WSJ, Economist and the local paper - the Boston Globe in my case) is the same as mine. But I read all but the Economist online, rather than the paper version. Cheaper and more ecologically benign. But I do find myself refreshing the screen constantly - a print-only regimen would slow this process down. And it's easy to get pulled into other links in the online versions, and fall into the internet rathole.
Gave up on TV news ages ago, but do listen to NPR when driving. I'm of a certain age that never started with social media
What a wonderful article. Mr. Manjoo is not only a good writer but a good thinker.
I do miss the Sunday mornings with the Times paper, reading a fast and slow as I wished. Having your newspaper delivered to your door/yard is something I always remember. I only read the digital version now, but I was a print subscriber since I was 12 years old.
Print only might be nice--but I'm only 60 miles from Washington DC and can't get daily delivery of WaPo or NYT, only the very local papers which I read for local news. Once a week I drive 25 miles round trip to pay $10 for the Sunday WaPo and NYT. I do subscribe digitally to both of them--how else can I get national and world news?
Unable to get a major newspaper delivered in my small town, and without television by choice, I receive all my new digitally. I have digital subscriptions to the NYT, WSJ and WaPo, along with the local paper, and a Facebook feed, but no Twitter. My Facebook feed includes a cousin who is convinced that requiring registration of guns will trigger a civil war, which will be quickly won by conservatives because they have all the guns; a fair number of both liberals and conservatives who seem to spend their time sharing divisive memes; and a preponderance of liberals and conservatives capable of critical thought. Liberals outnumber conservatives roughly 2-1.
When something shows up in my newsfeed that fires my skepticism, I start looking for sources. If I can find a source associated with an actual print source or a network news website (including CNN and even Fox), I go to the source. Otherwise I check with Snopes or Politifact, or check to see if one of my subscribed sources has covered it.
Often I find no mention of the story in more reputable sources. I tend to interpret this to mean that either the reported event did not happen, or is so distorted as to be unrecognizable. But it still has news value: there are people out there who believe this is true. Without that Facebook feed, I might be fully informed about the facts, but totally unaware of the tone of the nation. And that would make me well-informed - and also ignorant.
As a former journalist, I support print wholeheartedly for all of the reasons Mr. Manjoo states.
My only problem with delivery is the crime aspect. We live in a very urban neighborhood and unfortunately papers get stolen out of our driveway.
Secondly, it is dangerous to be out of town, either for a weekend or longer. We tried asking the delivery service to hold the papers, only to discover several sitting in our driveway upon return.
The other issue is that the delivery service itself isn't trustworthy with the knowledge of its customers being out of town and the draw of empty homes. We solved this worry with the post office by having a mailbox next to our front door with a false bottom, which when removed allows mail to be delivered up to a month without notice.
Too bad our society is no longer safe. There's nothing like settling in with a juicy newspaper, informing you, stretching your mind, giving you a chuckle, and in the case of the travel section, taking you to distant shores.
1
Where do you get the idea that social media = news?
I cannot be that old to think that is an absurd notion. It’s as though nearly the entire population lost all sense of perception and discernment.
Thank you, Mr. Manjoo, for putting into print the idea that many of us have thought for a long time. Digitalization and instantaneous result are easy and therefore addictive. And our society is increasingly, and unfortunately, all about easy.
1
Newspapers also provide balance. Rather than reeling from the onslaught of bad news, you receive a plethora of the good things that make life fun. Movie reviews, food, style, advice, even comic strips and puzzles. A hard copy paper reminds us that life is more than just getting angry over the latest horror. A good, reputable paper may just get you out of your outrage and to that exhibit you have been meaning to take in, but just haven’t gone to because you have been busy being upset. Turning off notifications is the best thing I have done for my sanity. Reading the paper and going out and appreciating the things art and literature and food bring to our table, and the dedicated people who create them, was the second. What are you waiting for? Go!
4
When we subscribed to analog, the sheer volume of paper that accumulated became one more thing to have to manage. Since switching only to digital, there is less clutter in the house. I sometimes find Reader Comments just as interesting and informative and as the original article. There are pros and cons of both approaches but the key is to seek out and support reputable news sources with real journalists and standards. Paying for your information is more important than the medium.
1
Such extreme measures are not necessary. Adults with a modicum of self discipline should be able to use the "off" switch on their phones and TVs.
7
'Adults' being the key word in that sentence.
That's the thing about addictions, Bob.
Self discipline is usually no match for them.
I applaud Mr. Majoo's conclusions. During this last couple of years, I have learned to appreciate the role of the individuals and news organizations that are doggedly dedicated to bringing us the truth. Nothing fake about it. If the news of the day seems to be a bit one-sided or liberal, perhaps that's because they're showing us what dire circumstances we're all in.
3
Hear, hear! I have even dumped my Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge for an old-fashioned Nokia C2 PHONE and it is liberating! Reading the news after "the dust settles," from a reliable source such as The Times has been my primary mode of operation and I sorely miss the "news" on television. What we now have is a series of talk shows, often as a yelling contest, and offering only opinions on events rather than reporting the events. Everyone on TV wants to do my thinking for me and tell me what I should believe and think. There is little critical thinking both on and in front of the TV. The 24/7 nature of the "news" numbed the senses and the minds of the people. We have to shake up the dust accumulated on our brains and start thinking for ourselves.
6
I became disgusted with acquaintances's I thought were educated (many from the same classes I had taken) Face Book posts. I stopped logging on in December 2016. I deleted my account last week. While I may be missing updates from friends, I do not miss the ignorance. I've never had a Twitter or Instagram account so I can't comment. From what I've read, those platforms are even worse than FB.
I wonder what the effect on the social platforms if every user who feels similarly took a 1 month hiatus and they were told why they were not being accessed. Would society become better informed?
I have been a newsprint subscriber for decades and I have noticed a decline in quality over the past decade. What is printed sometimes (more and more often) has some ideological slant and is also written in a more folksy style.
The print media does have room for improvement as does TV and cable news outlets.
4
Speaking of print, I'm going back to reading books -- novels, memoir -- in print vs. Kindle. Habits die hard. I still want to press a word I don't know and expect a definition to spring up, but other than that, holding a book in my hands and turning the pages is a more fulfilling experience. A story in hardcopy is more real, stays longer in the mind. In digital media, a novel seems more transitory, as if when the electricity goes off, the story will disappear.
Next challenge will be going from digital NYTimes to print seven days a week. At this point, the only print version of the Times is on Sunday and I focus on the book review section. (Then there's eating dinner in front of the news, but we are cutting back on that.) Next step -- make partner go along with getting the Times in print seven days a week the way we used to when we were first married and lived in NY City. He's a terrible instant-news addict.
5
I could not agree more! I am probably the only American who does not have Facebook or other Social Media apps (w/ an exception of NextDoor social media as our neighborhood does not have our own newsletter)! I get all of my news from printed materials such as newspapers (local, NYT, and occasional random selection of another paper) and newsweekly magazines (The Week, Time, and random selected magazines to get different perspectives). I do watch the nightly news (local & NBC news w/ Lester Holt). Without fail, the printed media provides me information with more detail, including clarification of what had happened, and clearly has been verified. The TV news leaves me begging for more information as they often neglect to do the 4 W's and one H (What, When, Where, and How).
I will not deny that I do read the blips offered online, but I always reserve my thoughts until reading the printed information from reputable news sources known for confirming and verifying the news. Having said that, I am not influenced by "Fake News". Unfortunately, it appears the majority does not follow this as they seem to prefer instant gratification of immediate news regardless of its inaccuracy. It may be that the genie is out of the bottle, but we need to find a way to educate others about the importance of the press as they provide us verification with accuracy per ethical guidelines taught in Accredited Journalism Schools and reinforced by professional trade associations for journalists!
3
Hi D,
There's at least two of us without Facebook.
Those I want to hear from I hear from and those I don't I don't!
Nicely stated. I have had similar experience in minimizing instant news but wasn't able to articulate it as well.
2
Part of the problem here has been the business model of many once respected news organizations has changed...and not for the better. Trump has been a boon to television; and, the industry has shown no remorse and/or control over their behavior.
So, how about a required "surgeon's warning" style of labeling of news. That is, news stories - regardless of media - must be labeled "news" or "opinion"...and held accountable for those claims.
4
Bravo, thank you, and amen! I will share this as far and wide as my social media channels will allow! As one who majored in journalism I regularly react to what passes as news online with the thought that it would not have received a passing grade in Journalism 101 due to its lack of verification and objectivity.
8
I appreciate this piece on slower news, and though I also read print newspapers several times a week (but not daily), my own experience is that print takes longer. That's a part of why I enjoy it. I was surprised that the author found he had more time by reading print. So that brings me to a question: about how much time did you spend daily with digital media that switching to print gave you more time?
4
I’m I’m over 70 and a print reader from way back (hello, Superior Evening Telegram). It is the norm for me, although alerts from the NYT and the Washington Post and whatever the Apple news feature offers up are important and addicting as well. I agree completely with this article. I joke (?) that I hope the end of print newspapers and my life come simultaneously, as life wouldn’t be worth much without print.
7
It seems that now, more than ever, Marshall McLuhan's "The medium is the message." is correct.
The techno-gadgets from whence our daily infusion of "data" comes mean as much as the data themselves. The gadgets define us, they don't inform us.
The paper edition of the NYT arrives here late in the day so I get my daily "fix" via the Internet. The New Yorker still arrives by mail and the local daily and weekly can be had at the corner store.
The decline in paper editions of all kinds has been a major factor in the near-death of Maine's once thriving paper making industry that employed many thousands. The NYTimes Company was once a major land owner in Maine -- trees for its newsprint -- but no more.
Our choices has wide ranging consequences as well as personal ones.
4
I'm under 40 and I've been a daily print subscriber for the past three years. I get a lot of ribbing from people about my daily paper, but I find I'm also better informed and less anxious about the news. I assume when I read online, an algorithm starts to funnel me news about "breaking" or "trending" events, which usually involve half baked analysis of some crisis or irrelevant news about the President. An actual newspaper reminds me that there's a wider world out there and provides me with a broader perspective. I also think it's important for my children to see me modeling reading actual print instead of looking at my phone. As to the price, Orwell once remarked that a person could have all the news in the world for less than his daily pack of cigarettes. Mr. Manjoo points out that it costs more than an iPhone these days, but I'd say you get your money's worth and more. I've been Sundays only for the past few weeks due to my schedule, and the Daily Briefing is excellent, but I'm looking forward to getting back to my daily ritual.
16
Very few things in life are better than going through the entire Sunday paper for a few hours in the morning with your coffee. The experience of print is different than digital because you let the paper give you stories that you would otherwise filter out online. Too bad that I do not have time the other six days a week for this indulgence.
25
Charley, enjoy whatever amount of it to the extent you can and pass it on. Happy reading.
Devoted Times subscriber here (print, for decades now). And admitted news/commentary junkie as well. This article makes me feel shame for the time I spend watching the commentary on TV. In my defense, is it, for me, a form of entertainment. I take all that I hear on MSNBC's nightly news lineup with a healthy dose of salt. I even try to cross the street once in awhile and see what Fox is saying, though that's less entertainment than torture!
15
I hear you. We know too much salt can be detrimental to our health. Torture, however, is simply illegal and un-American.
For daily news, I've only read the NY Times, English and French papers for the last 20 years or more, plus radio news during my commute. And I don't watch any TV news (nor on the net). My life and (I feel) my perspective are all the better for it. Of course, no matter your sources a healthy scepticism is always needed.
My conversations with Fox fed family and friends are irreal. Not a lot of facts or policies on their side, just Fox talking points repeated (and "a feeling it's true". However, conversations with generally well-informed European friends and colleagues are a breath of fresh air.
20
Great article. We have a digital subscription to the Times and home delivery of the print version on the weekends. We don't go on Facebook, Twitter or any other digital format for three days a week. By Monday, we feel sane again.
I love getting my morning coffee, sitting down on the living room rug, and spreading out the various sections of the Times in front of me. I love that the paper exists in my three dimensional world.
16
Reading my news online or on a handheld device definitely has its advantages - portability, less paper clutter, and of course considerably more affordable. However, what I miss most about the print newspaper is coincidentally reading articles that appear on the same page of the story that I wanted to read that I otherwise would have missed
22
I'd like to put in a word for news agencies, such as Reuters and the AP. I too turned off all breaking news notifications a year or two ago and have never regretted it - but I'm happy to check the Reuters site multiple times a day. Several reasons: firstly, news agencies take a great deal of care when it comes to accuracy and sourcing, as everyone else is relying on them. Although they do publish comment and analysis, they don't lead with it and you have to go looking for it (a criticism of the NYT would be the quantity and especially prominence of opinion pieces, and like most newspapers an obsession with one or two particular topics). Agencies aren't nearly as influenced by what's trending on social media as everyone else and they're not tempted to pander to any particular political or sociological interest groups or to advance particular causes (e.g. they'll cover gender issues when something's newsworthy, but won't blindly repeat online spats or activism). Reuters have a "Trust" that covers under reported countries and topics. The writing tends to be very concise and to the point; you can catch up quickly (they make an effort to recap complex international stories if you've missed previous developments, without it being patronising). Reuters especially have loads of great photos (and generally supply more than anyone else), and as a UK reader I highly recommend AP's "Divided America" compilation.
So try getting your news direct from a news agency for a change.
25
Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with Reuters and the AP. Just recently I began thinking that the constant breaking news updates from digital NY Times weren't necessary and I unsubscribed. Few people have the time to read all the articles and categories of a major news paper every day. Digital gives me access to science and health information as well as business news I would otherwise skip over and makes it available for more than a day.
10
Thank you for an idea that may lower my blood pressure. I can check Reuters first throughout the day, then just put my phone down until the evening when there is time to read whole articles. As a Twitter follower of many correspondents, no more getting worked up first by commentary before reading the facts.
2
Thank you for writing this. I feel exhausted by trying to keep up with the constant bombardment of digital media, to the point that I have almost completely stopped trying to keep up as a way to preserve my sanity! Slowing down the processing of information we get about issues that matter is important, and it's also an essential way we learn. Your insight on the differences in validity between digital and print media is enough to encourage me to not withdraw, but to try reading from a different format. It amazes me to think part of the solution to information overload wasn't obvious to me.
5
Your article is so timely, thank you. The addictive quality of newsfeeds and social media is manifested all around us as people stare into their phones or at their computers and feel compelled to follow, join in and repeat streams of commentary. At a personal level it has eroded many civilities, and it has a swamping effect on other subjects of conversation which are deeply worthy, if not newsworthy. The dangers and lasting contamination of misinformation disseminated through the addictive speed of social media are real. What you write about the pernicious effects of this technology 'softening up society for propaganda' is dead right. In the past months my husband has closed down his Twitter account (I refused to have one and we have always avoided Facebook) and because we live in a rural area, we read online the NY Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian and at times the BBC. On weekends we buy the International NYT, The Guardian, and the FT all in print. And in summer we often disconnect altogether for a few weeks, other than an occasional tune in to NPR. I cherish our printed newspapers, and I save sections which then accompany me on train journeys or get saved for summer reading, and I still clip and file recipes and features which I want to return to. Print allows me to remember that real life is slow. And I agree with the reader below who enjoys the community of readers commenting on the NY Times site, and occasionally contributing.
9
I have held three principles in mind since I heard them as a HS freshman in 1949; Never Deny, Seldom Confirm and Always Distinguish. I have not gone very wrong over the years.
16
I have followed the same news diet for years, except we have a local Gannett rag instead of a real paper. The web site of one local TV station fills the void. If its not weather updates, next day works. Mixing NYT, WSJ and Economist (and maybe "New Yorker") Also gives confidence in the balance while avoiding the fatigue.
7
I'm generally in agreement with this, except that I feel I learn a lot from online comments here at the NYT online. The insights of many other readers add to my understanding of various nuances; they often add information or perspective to the original article. But yes, I too limit myself. No cable or TV news at all. The NYT daily online, WSJ occasionally, NPR daily on the car radio. Local paper weekly. Occasional detours into articles shared by intelligent friends. That's plenty!
146
I get the NYT delivered daily and while I do read online news sources, I'm not on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Like the author, I receive a number of print news magazines as well. I feel like I'm equally, if not more, informed as most people. The hysteria of online news "feeds" is just not worth the effort it takes to filter the signal/noise elements. Likewise, I'm an IT professional of longstanding, but I've not lived in a house with a working TV for over 30 years. So, I'm not exactly a Luddite when it comes to the internet, but I find my experience in relation to news is greatly enhanced by avoiding the more frenetic approach to information and stick with a variety of sources that force me to read, analyze, and digest what's going on in the world. I think if more folks would turn off the TV, dump Facebook and Twitter, and read a bit more often, the world would be a better and more sane place than the one we are living in now.
29
I love real newsprint!, I live in San Antonio, so get the digital version (Sunday print), Washington Post and WSJ, both digital. My local paper The San Antonio Express is delivered and read every day. How ever I do believe that where I work, I am one of the few who reads anything! An interesting side note, our local newspaper will "disappear" on coupon days!
7
I don't get my news from Facebook but I do follow certain people on twitter. I have a digital subscription to the NY Times which I read on my laptop. I don't use an app. I can't read newspapers anymore, my eyes get tired from squinting at the small type. I am in my 50's and I have presbyopia. It's much too hard to read newspapers, books or magazine paper copies nowadays. My eyes are too bad. Maybe staring at a computer for 20 years has exacerbated the problem.
7
I'm dying for world news and news that does not include Trump's latest gaff. I mean, he's a gaff a minute, but there is stuff happening outside of the US and I would like to have that bigger world view. I can't find any news channel on
TV that isn't just repeating the latest about Trump and they all repeat the same story hour after hour. Too many talking heads! NPR is, for me, still the best and most inclusive radio news source. And, of course the NY Times. One can't live without it.
14
Try the BBC World News. We have found them to be a great source of news of international import, and without all the US political biases.
1
What about PBS's News Hour? And I never miss Washington Week.
If you want to be truely informed, skip the NYT, NPR, and WaPo - they are basicly mouthpieces for the DNC and whatever meme it wants to push that day.
While not perfect, try the BBC.
Liberating, isn't it.
I have lived on a regimen of the WSJ and NYT for breakfast, NPR with coffee and PBS News Hour over dinner for years. I tuned out the 24 hour news network bombardment, cancelled the Twitter before it ever took root and refuse to look at social media sources for day-to-day commentary from the ill-informed. I have found all I need is a reliable source of information and that I can form my own opinions. I have tired of and don't need talking heads screaming over one-another to tell me what to think.
The dumbing down of America can be curbed. An old saw from years past..."Politicians tell lies to journalists and then believe them when they see them in print."
Don't drink the Kool-aid and mix your own martini, folks.
67
."Politicians tell lies to journalists and then believe them when they see them in print."
And that is exactly the quality of news that you got from those sources you say you live on. It takes real work and time to verify the claims the major media make, and too many like you refuse to do that work.
In some rural areas (like mine) delivery of the NYT is not an option.
10
Yep, only digital for many magazine and newspapers!
Plus, in the real paper, you get the paid obits!
9
The key is having the judgment to determine what is and what is not a reputable source for news. Mr. Manjoo subscribed to highly regarded publications in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Economist. If you get any of your news from sources like Facebook, Fox News, or Breitbart and you don’t understand why that’s a problem, there’s no hope for you.
24
Unfortunately, the people we most need to understand the news, young newly working folks, get their news in this way and as you said, can't know that it is biased. It all comes down to the unfairness of education-if it were equal, if we all were given an excellent education, we all could make educated informed decisions about what we choose to read and believe.
5
On Twitter there is too much reliance on divisive and/or sensationalized "click bait", whereas the cable news network spend too much time rotating in and out the same group of pundits at the expense of reporting on a greater variety of issues/content. That said, whether print or digital, every news organization has a bent and that may in turn influence whether some types of news makes news at all.
The main requirement of an informed citizenry, I think, is to make a sincere effort to diversify one's understanding of the issues/world. Much like dietary health, what tastes good isn't always good for you and what doesn't hold much if any appeal isn't always wise to avoid.
News that is comfortable, which confirms an existing bias, isn't of the caliber that challenges, changes and inspires growth. In my view, the biggest threat to our ability to govern sensibly and to remain "one nation, undivided" is the ease with which we lock ourselves into ideological silos. Understandably, however, we have people who are most passionate on either end of the spectrum, who in turn make for the most easily accessible and reliable audiences/readers. Social media more so than creating this trend has exposed it. It is incumbent upon us to look to a variety of sources to fill in the gaps.
1
From your lips to G-d's ear.
3
A touchingly naïve vision of the supremacy of print. Would that hallowed papyrus gave us the kind of measured insight the author describes! Alas, that vision has gone the way of the wise, tweedy college professor, dispensing dispassionate knowledge trailed by earnest students. Many of the papers I see ( including the Times) have succumbed to the temptation of the digital news age, and have confused fact - based reporting with advocacy. Many papers try to protect their readers against " false news" by providing unintentionally ( ? ) biased reporting of " facts".
5
And the NYT is one of those that provides biased reporting of "facts".
1
Poignant - several things
First, it's been done, but - like quadruple axels - doesn't mean it's gotten old...
*ttp://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/opinion/20tues4.html
*ttp://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/01/opinion/editorial-observer-leaving-blank-pages-in-yet-another-new-diary.html
...don't know if you've read Verlyn - NYT search shows 0 results, on your concurrent surnames
Second, had NYT and WSJ delivered - end of the driveway - every day and business day, respectively, for decades
Now, on the road too much
But - stopped most recent hard-copy delivery for different reasons
> NYT: Dean finally crossed the line and - though agree w/ the most-recommended comment that hard-copy is the only way to get the "total newspaper experience" - had had enough...Further, no paywall at the time, and needed for the NYT to figure out where its bread was buttered - and that they didn't qualify for food stamps
> WSJ: prodded into taking hard-copy, to get a better on-line deal...Got it for about a week, then suspended hard-copy delivery
Third, you do realize that most every NYT piece linkable to any of seven on-line aggregators...Never had a FB account - don't even like to take the subway through the ungentrified Bklyn nabe that is Red Dit...
But - last...
About 3-5 hops on Google, and can be at any news - or knowledge - in any language and any bias...
NYT's sin always been one of selective omission - not errant inclusion
Grocery circulars coming on Wednesday - looking forward to them
1
Times - they are changing eh?
The genie is out of the bottle - no way to put it back.
Best is to create a brand that credibly stands for @Truth in social media - the space is open for NYT, WP and WSJ. Go for it guys - you have a squadron of supporters....
2
Ironically, two 19th century East coast neurologists described an epidemic of "neurasthenia" and "nervous exhaustion" sweeping across their cities (NY and Phila.), which they attributed to the sudden speeding up of information flow and travel: the periodical press, the telegraph, and trains. They must be howling now!
6
It's not the media, it's who is controlling a given outlet. The N.Y. Times is mostly accurate whether in print or on line. Info-wars, and many others, would be imaginary (fake) likewise in either mediums.
This very newspaper is capable of distortion, not only selective printing but in one example that I spent hundreds of hours to redress, the grossly distorted decision of a 5th Federal Court of appeals made it seem that a Black kid was punished for spelling errors and profanity in a rap song he wrote.
My view was confirmed by legal scholar Eugene Voloch, then hosted by the Washington Post, but the vast numbers of readers in both media didn't choose to challenge what was obviously implausible. The N.Y. Times is one of the main movers in acceptance of same sex marriage, starting by including these in their announcements when only civil unions. This paper shapes norms without the need for false stories.
The main advantage of online anything, including newspapers, is availability of hot links, which allows the reader to drill down as deeply as he/she chooses. This simply is impossible in print,
The argument of this writer is negated by the fact that this Newspaper has the same tone and legitimacy (mostly) in both media.
I still get a News-Paper as well as reading online news venues. Those who value their reputation, irrespective of medium, can earn it.
1
Agree with previous posters about print vs. online newspapers. There is NO difference between a printed newspaper (such as the NYT) and the online digital edition. I can sit a the breakfast table and read the paper before I head off to work. I do this with both the Times and the Washington Post. As long as I avoid social media (and the Comments section--this one included) I get only the news, without any editorial content that I don't care to see, unless I go to the Opinion section.
1
It isn't how information is delivered that counts. It's being judicious, skeptical, and focused on reading sources that usually turn out to be accurate. Whether on a piece of paper or in pixels on a screen, one needs to 'engage brain, before starting.' (I no longer read 'print' newspapers because I feel guilty that I read five percent and discard into some anonymous landfill the other 95 percent.) Online I can read several quality newspapers without wasting time and gas driving to a newsstand or hoping a physical paper doesn't end up soaked in the rain. I can read news from Madrid, or London, or Tel Aviv, or Tokyo without spending a fortune -- as if I'd bother or even could subscribe to The Japan Times or Ha'aretz or The Guardian. I think magazines are better for analysis. Online for finding 'news'.
5
"Not to quickly" reminds me of something I believe Colin Powell said the day after the first Desert Storm attack. He warned reporters that "initial reports are always wrong". I think he is right, and given todays brain research I suspect almost all humans first perceive what we want to perceive, only after time to think about it can we realize, that might not be what happened at all. When you start looking for it you see it time and time again from Presidential statements to casual lunch conversations.
1
I’m like Mr. Manjoo: I read the NYTimes online, The Economist in print and the SFChron both in print and online. The twenty-four hour news cycle has destroyed both in depth reporting and analysis, as Mr. Manjoo has pointed out. Too many headlines and notifications. Still like the online comments, though.
2
I've been a NYT reader since we got it in class at JHS127BX over a half century ago. Our teachers taught us how to read the paper and its importance right through HS. Even had my wife send me a Sunday NYT subscription when I was stationed in Vietnam. Print is our main source but we also sprinkle it with digital subscriptions lately of other papers as well. It is very interesting to see each form's take on an event. TV, Instagram and Twitter are shallow and rely on graphics. We are in the minority and don't do FaceBook. There is nothing wrong with all that but kids (many adults too) need to learn how digest what is being fed them on line and in print. Most have no idea of Black, Gray or White Propaganda and facts.
7
Nice things about newspaper:
If you lose it you don’t care
When you’re finished with it you can leave it in the john for the next person
It’s not slippery. You can safely carry it under your arm
It makes a fair umbrella in a pinch
You can see an entire article at once
You can deal with the messy ink by having your butler iron it (Ever try ironing out EMFs from an iPhone?)
You can fold, spindle, and mutilate and it still delivers news
You can spill hot coffee on it and it still delivers the news
It requires no tech support
You can skip *all* the adds
You can tear out an article that you really like, stuff it in your pocket and read it later
You can make funny hats out of them (An alternative to the tin foil kind)
You can wrap fish in it
You can line a bird cage with it
You can pack dishes in it when you move
You can start a fire with it
You can tear out a picture of donald trump to put on your dart board
You can tear out a picture of Hillary Clinton to put on your dart board
It never needs to be recharged
There won’t be a version 2.1
You can tap on it all you want and never lose your place or open a page you don’t want to see
You can’t restrict content by what you like or agree with
It will never crash from a virus or compromise your privacy
There is no fine print to read before you can open it
It is patient. It will never tell you to read it, or dish up spoilers or click bait
It doesn’t give a rats if you “like” it or not, and it’s completely indifferent to emojis
18
The tragic thing is that this isn't old news to everyone.
4
Great points here. One question comes to mind for me; why doesn't The NY Times proved a digital option on the app to read the paper as published each day. The WSJ does a great job of this on their app - I can choose to read the paper as published, or get the latest updates. This is sorely lacking with the NYT.
13
This seems common sense.
1
Don't listen to radio news unless I'm in the car and NPR comes on. Watch television news once or twice a week. Get most of what I know online (principally the Times) or from magazines. The written word helps you think. Images principally make you feel. Am 79 years old. Still sane and I know the reason why.
4
I agree totally with all the points made in this clear-minded article presented here for our enlightenment.
The time has come to return to the original concepts and requirements of news reporting namely:
Who, What, Why, Where, When, and How.
Most news articles are twice as long as they need to be. Repetition should be avoided. (NY Times is notably guilty of this failing.)
Sentences are far too long and exercise endless rambling - on and on to a fault.
Sentences should be brief, clearly stated, and forego too many phrases and clauses. Subject, predicate, and object is the rule.
Flow and emphasis is vital for the sake of clarity.
These are my views and what I hope are sensible suggestions .... in brief.
-30-
5
Print is extremely wasteful. We need more trees to suck up the excess CO2 in the atmosphere, not less of them. In the year 2018 there's no reason to be chopping down trees so you can have your newspaper delivered to your door. The ink may be toxic. Then there's the matter of disposal, plus the plastic the newspapers may be wrapped in. Surely there are ways to edit your news feed.
I wasn't distracted by any articles claiming the Florida school shooter was a member of ISIS, sponsored by George Soros in a plot to take away our guns, or simply a fake news event orchestrated by actors. If those issues really plague you, perhaps you have no business being employed by the media.
18 school shootings, fake news! There were only 14! Don't you feel so much safer now?
6
... yes, and the electricity to power my iPad, not to mention the materials and substances from which the device is made, come from thin non-polluting free-as-a-bird no-impact-whatsoever air.
1
This is a call for the NYT to Fix their digital edition.
1. get news analysis off the front page of the digital edition
2. get the op-ed page off the front of the digital edition.
3. Run only the front page of the print edition on the 3/4 of the digital edition with the lower quarter with pictures and a table of contents.
Thank you
8
YES. Take opinion pieces off the front. It feels like I am being hit over the head by the contract terms of NYT Op-Ed writers.
Agree with all of Miami Joe's suggestions.
Some may see another advantage of reading print as a media that limits the the barrage of the tweeting echo chamber of our president. If more folks read reputable newspapers like the NY Times either digital or actual print perhaps we might just witness a lot less sound and fury or using my wondrous computer to access the bard's words: “Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
2
You are probably saving a lot in the long run. Did your online shopping bill go down?
I admit it - I just love to read print on paper. It’s a lifelong reassuring and calming ritual. I do read digital, and just read this article on my iPad - after reading my two daily print newspapers that I happily pay for. And I am middle aged.
1
One problem and my biggest is the subscription fee. If it is considered important for the citizens of a democracy to be well informed why is any tariff on news imposed?
Seems reasonable that print editions must charge in order to cover expenses of employees, newsprint, distribution and ancillary fees, but advertising alone should cover the investment of online publication, or is this news which isn't fit to print?
I did the same thing a few months ago. Sometimes the papers pile up, but mostly, I am trying to change my habits and go back to reading the paper version.
I don't think reading reputable newspapers on paper is any more virtuous or responsible than reading those same reputable papers digitally - and digital is much more environmentally responsible. The important thing is to get your news from sites that have editors, with stories written by actual journalists trained in such things as bias. Shame on anyone who thinks social media is an appropriate place to get "news."
2
Good post. I get the NYT digitally and read it every morning with my first cup of coffee and I really enjoy it. My local paper (Knoxville News Sentinel) arrives a little later. My problem is that the local paper is twice+ the price of the NYT and only has very limited local news as it is owned by a syndicate. It does have state news and I will continue to subscribe in the foreseeable future, but it's frustrating!!
digital is more environmentally friendly. save the trees!
Agree on all counts. It was better in the 70s and 80s when you could buy newspapers at Out of Town News (Cambridge) and go park in a cafe and read them. One news source I get that has value is the emails from the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which does a much better job following local elections and gerrymandering issues across these United States than the national media. Le Monde, Corriere della Sera, that's news junky in style. WSJ editorial positions are deplorable but it is my best source of financial news. I do like the Guardian and the LA Times. There's more out there than I can consume, but that has always been true.
6
I deleted my Facebook account within months after my inbox clogged with forwarded jokes and political pieces of dubious provenance and can’t fathom why any thinking person would get news that way. But I hope I’m never forced to choose between digital and paper versions of the Times because they serve me so differently.
What could be more indulgent, for example, than the paper Sunday Times, sipped slowly all morning with a full pot of coffee? You can read the entire magazine or the review of books, turn the pages until something you never thought of catches your eye, marvel at the over-the-top ads for stuff you’d never buy in a million years even if you could afford it—in addition to a full plate of news and analysis.
And when you just need solid news sustenance or a quick fix on the latest Trump outrage. you really can’t beat digital. You can stay on top of what’s going on and get more as it comes out. And with a click you can go to referenced excellent reads in, say, Atlantic or Politico or other intelligent outlets.
But the cherry on top of a Times digital subscription is the moderated and curated comments. Sometimes they make you laugh (today’s favorite was “Poor Republicans. They have my thoughts and prayers.”); sometimes they make you go back and read the underlying piece more closely; almost always they make you think more deeply.
So while I may occasionally pig out on the Sunday paper, you will have to pry my iPad subscription from my hot little hands.
5
This past September began my subscription to the Times. The New York Times! I always felt I would have had achieved some status if only I could subscribe to this newspaper. I happily drive in to my workplace 45 minutes early just to enjoy life's ever-shrinking solitude and read the periodical. I find the experience of having to bring the section close to my face and blow two pages apart timeless and endearing. Who needs Facebook, the Huffington Post, or Twitter? Honestly, they don't miss me either.
6
That's one reason I dislike ABC's Evening News, even though it does cover some good stories. Everything is 'this just in,' 'trending now,' etc. They go out of their way to appear rushed and unfiltered, as if that were a positive thing. CBS is much calmer and usually explains the stories better. And of course PBS and BBC (and NHK) are required viewing--or listening, with PBS Newshour on the radio if one is out and about in the car.
I can't even imagine getting news through social media. First, it would be incredibly intrusive, stress-inducing, and often wrong. Who needs that? For my mid-afternoon news I treasure the Times' Asian morning briefing--which is where I saw this story.
I do with the Post were available on the West Coast. I have the Opinion section mailed to me by good friends in MD so I can read the book reviews.
2
NYT print subscriber since 2008; it's expensive but I have budgeted monthly for my daily ritual of reading my paper, listening to music and drinking my coffee. I grew up watching my dad reading his daily newspaper, working the crosswords, and poring over the obituaries. I asked him one day why the obituary page and he replied "making sure I'm not in it." Unfortunately he was in late June 2013. Now I make sure my hot coffee is in the same cup he used and I not only catch up on the news in depth from some of my favorite reporters but I remember my Dad and honor his lessons of teaching me, however unknowingly, of the importance of reading and being informed regarding the daily events.
5
Can't disagree with much of this.
But it strikes me as a great piece of content marketing: highlight a problem that suits your agenda; suggest the solution that favours your product.
This is what most of us discerning readers have been doing for years. Welcome to the real world.
6
I’m a millennial and I subscribe to the print edition of the WSJ and the Sunday print edition of the NYT in lieu of consuming (most of) my news online.
Despite the fact that there is a seemingly endless daily supply of online news, I found myself to be just perusing headlines and pithy commentary instead of discovering the facts. Wearied by the constant stream of information and notifications from social media and various online news sources, I’ve found solace in disciplining myself to read through a printed, tangible, newspaper—though early on, I did find myself looking for a phantom comment box at the bottom of the newspaper’s page.
4
I don't see social media as any worse than talking to your friends about the news. Sure, your friends can and do distort, garble, and misinterpret the news, but it is valuable to observe the evolution of news perceptions, even when inaccurate. Just don't assume that what you hear or read is true.
2
Irony, thy name is "the comment section"
Like an analog watch, I find the difference is not the media but the context. Half past the hour makes sense in analog. 7:24 is an single data point. Similarly, reading a newspaper is much different from reading a story, many stories on the same topic, or even an assortment of stories from multiple sources.
"First I read the obituaries. If I don't find my name, I move on to Sports ..."
Details such as the position of a story, it supporting commentary, the length given to coverage all provide context. Its relative relation to other things happening at the same time, whether local, or international, provide perspective. The minutia of daily life, documented in the same body of work offer a grounding.
Life is more than Trump's latest Tweets. The pages of Sports, Fashion, Local News, Comics, and the Financial section offer a breath of information that reminds us that no matter how alarming, or enlightening a single piece of news may be, its still only one part of a much larger whole.
The thankless job of editors, reporters, copy reviewers, and composition staff, is to compile, curate, organize and present a snapshot of life each and every day. Done well, its an impressive achievement; Reading google news, pales by comparison.
When the print newspaper is gone, an art form will have been lost. It should be missed. "Trump tweeted at 7:24 AM Today, yet no one noticed that the Yankees still won."
Thank You.
2
Good Afternoon: For me, the biggest advantage of paper newspapers (for lack of a better term) consists of serendipity--blundering across stories you didn't know you wanted to read until after blundering into them.
5
Thank you for reminding us that there is a qualifiable difference between drinking from the firehose of Twitter all day, and spending the equivalent amount of time reading a newspaper.
While I love the experience of a print newspaper, I don’t like the waste of old papers accumulating in the house. Nor can I afford $81/month for the home delivery of a single news source. However, this article has prompted me to ditch Twitter. In addition, I’m looking forward to returning to the practice of exploring the daily New York Times and Washington Post via their individual digital apps, instead of letting Apple News or other intermediaries curate and siphon their content before delivering it to me.
Hopefully, I can rediscover what it’s like to be a deliberate news consumer.
3
Your social experiment is monumentally important. Thank you so much! I am reminded of the dig that Hasan Minaj made at CNN during the White House correspondents dinner. He said it's like watching CNN watch the news. Instead he pleaded with them to watch the news, figure out what happened, and then tell him!
1
Although I do not get my news from Twitter of Facebook, I still feel hyped up about the news. I read the NYTimes online, the Washington Post online, and CNN online. CNN is definitely geared to speed. I check all of these sites much too often. Another thing I believe is bad for me is commenting on the news.
Here I am and there you go.
2
I consider serious online and broadcast news sources (like NYTimes Online, BBC, WSJ, NPR) to be the equivalent of print. For me, it's not the medium, it the quality of the message. That said, I avoid most social media due to it's incredibly annoying ratio of noise to information, both by advertisers and trolls.
2
I read the print edition of the NYTimes and also consult the online version regularly. The online version has a front page that is designed to attract readers from all over world. More power to it! But if you're a New Yorker, and you want news of what's going on locally -- especially in cultural activities -- you're better off with the print edition. The website has everything in its database but unless you know what to look for, you can't find it all.
1
Yes, they can improve being able to find the articles on the web site. Less links to click the better.
I am about to wrap up a yearlong stay in Germany. I can't wait to go home and back to my print NY Times over breakfast on Sunday mornings. It is one of the things I've missed the most about life in the US.
1
Maybe you can add an option to the NYT app, to update every 12 or 6 or 2 hours?
2
I too am very selective about the news I consume, and part of my morning routine involves getting the Seattle Times with my dog (down a 250 foot driveway and through a gate), and reading all or a bit depending on how busy my day is. But I also stay in touch with the Univ. of Washington - social is a fact of life for the students I interact with, and print is not even a consideration - similar to my own adult children. Thanks for the insights Farhad.
2
My husband and I read the Times print edition daily as well as our local paper, The Times Herald Record. I also receive digital morning and evening news, breaking news throughout the day as well as other Times digital products. I love the print edition! It’s thorough, insightful and full of articles not available digitally. I love to relax in a comfy chair and just read it, cover to cover. Unfortunately for the Times, we are 72. Fortunately, we are healthy.
10
While I certainly agree with your basic assessment: that news based on facts and thoughtful analysis is far superior to instant reaction, I do want to point out that had nothing to do whether you're reading print out on line. I read the Times and Financial Times on line each day. if I did not read them on line my subscription could not follow me wherever I go. the problem is people's reluctance to exercise judgement and discrimination (in the positive sense of good taste) when going on line. That is a failure of our educational system and of parenting. so teach you children well as the old song goes.
5
Get news from news sources like NYTimes, WAPO, etc print or digital. I miss turning the pages, but I'm happy to do my role to help reduce the carbon footprint associated with delivery and saving trees. Social media is just that "social" and should not be construed as a news source. It's just a lot of distraction like so much of news these days.
13
"It's just a lot of distraction like so much of news these days." While this article makes some good points, it is certainly true that newspapers and magazines create a good deal of repetition and fluff that they pass off as news.
1
I agree with the complaint that printed newspapers are "too big, the type too small, the ink too messy, and a hassle on the go".
How about if the Times offered something between their website and their printed paper? I would like to see a daily newspaper that is formatted specifically for a tablet, that I could read at the breakfast table. Hopefully it would include the comics.
2
The Times already does this. It’s the Times app. Check it out on your tablet. (No comics, though; so far, the Times doesn’t do comics.)
Twenty years ago, a handful of us made this argument in defense of real tangible news on the grounds of print accountability. We were dismissed as luddites & technophobes, despite presenting reasoned arguments based upon the Achilles' heels of technology -- that of hidden mechanism -- as contrasted with the permanence of a printed record.
We cringe now, because we are and have been well aware that the lazier, riskier habit of letting others provide you with "Cliff's Notes" of reality is well-entrenched in a plurality of the American population. And a twenty-year habit is not one to be unbroken.
Until we as Americans start again actively valuing and cultivating the importance and ability of thinking for oneself on all levels and in all realms, the repercussions of not just tolerating, but enabling a society dominated by those incapable of individual analytical thought will compound until they overwhelm and obliterate us.
Is there no one left who might have read Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, and 1984? Or is it completely lost upon us the significance of the need for those cautionary societies to burn their print media?
Yes: Read real papers. Think slowly, and thoroughly. Be a citizen. Please.
48
Twenty years ago, I was two months old. But though I've grown up with computers and I've been using them since my parents made the mistake of letting me use their Windows 2000 computer to play educational children's games, even I can tell that hot takes on social media and the notifications I get from three different publishers trying to be the first to break it-- even I can see that it's mostly garbage.
The present generation still enjoys reading good books, grows weary of sensationalism, and switches to vibrate to avoid the constant onslaught of the thousands of voices demanding attention every second of the day. Maybe there are fewer people like that now than before, but I believe we can make this situation better once we've suffered it long enough. The Internet is still pretty young, and there's a lot we haven't tried in the way of making it work for us rather than overwhelm and poison us.
So maybe don't worry too much.
10
Though it seems you missed the point of the article. Maybe you didn’t get to the last paragraph. The author is not indicting digital media per se, but the various forms of ersatz news which has certainly flourished in digital form, but existed to a lesser extent in tabloids prior to the advent of digital devices.
Whether one reads the same content of The NY Times etc on a tablet, or on the hallowed newsprint that you are espousing matters little. It is what one reads, not where one reads it that matters.
I have to argue here that the medium is not the message. You can read full articles, not just the morning/evening briefing. Sure, now we click links for video, but there is still accompany print. The whole paper is there, the format is just easier to manage on a bus (or a kitchen table). What you consume is, and has always been, up to you.
1
In general, the method in the article is my approach and has been, for years.
As a result, I hear from friends and colleagues who tell me what they saw on MSNBC or Fox News (hard as it may be to imagine, one can have friends and colleagues who, um, swing both ways), which is often the first and last I hear about it.
Or I catch a snippet of what our local NBC affiliate calls 'hot headlines' which are nearly always the opposite of that description, perhaps identifying what clothing Meghan Markle wore or how a non-random sample of viewers adjudged some question.
That a writer for one of the nation's leading sources of actual news finds this even a bit surprising is, well, surprising.
I know that the writer is charged with being knowledgeable about all things tech, but that is not supposed to be at the expense of common sense thinking.
Perhaps he will continue to follow this approach and stay well - if not immediately - informed.
6
I admire you. Internet "news" is so easy to get "mired" in, but even so it's possible to avoid certain notorious black holes of reason. Facebook, twitter, and the wacko extremes in particular.
I'd like to follow the same approach but down here it's impossible (for an American, at least). Print subscriptions are prohibitively expensive (and two weeks late), and the local papers are trash. I'm stuck with on-line news which I get from the Times, BBC, the Guardian, and Bloomberg. Sometimes Al Jazeera but I hate their app.
I live in an historic little college town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. I come down for breakfast about 8am usually, start the coffee, etc. and then go to the front steps to retrieve the NY Times, Wash Post, and Wall St Jl. I LOVE print and it was my first news love. I DO supplement the hard copy news with the NPR 8/9am news and current affairs to an extent because there is always breaking news and an old reporter in print and later with the BBC and CBC (Canada) has to be up with the news. But I rarely check in with news again till 5pm. I still learn more from print than any other medium, including the web, which I do use but I try (yes, sometimes not too hard) to use the latter sparingly. Susan Flanigan and I also regularly watch the PBS Newshour as we have for years. Only if there is a compelling news event (usually a major, not trivial Trump eruption) do we switch, briefly to CNN and with glance at Fox News to note what they are NOT carrying and then we go back to reading The Economist, other good monthlies/quarterlies. There is real serenity of mind and peace of mind in reading from print. Plus we also read a lot of current books both non-fiction and fiction. But a day without newspapers is big loss. I even check the front pages of the NYT, Post, and WSJ to a lesser extent) just before I go to bed. I knwI am a dinosaur and happily so. And true, I do comment on Facebook but I try to limit that.
14
"Susan Flanigan and I also regularly watch the PBS Newshour as we have for years." The Newshour has lost its edge, I believe. It more or less repeats the Network news without offering anything fresh, whatever that might be. With the passage of time, the Newshour has become an arid purveyor of news. There are no added dimensions to the information it offers, and it has taken on a political bias that it doesn't acknowledge.
My grandparents lived near Rock Hall. (They attended St Paul's church, a great place for a nap but the minister was a wonderful man.) I spent a lot of time there and in Chestertown as a kid and have wondered what they're like today. Can you still get a bushel of oysters off the docks for $3? (Ha!)
You can do almost all of that, without exception electronically. the format may change, but the content is the same. Your argument is the quality of the journalism; not whether or not you receive it on a screen.
Even when the author was reading printed news, "there were many times I felt in the dark about what the online hordes thought about the news."
And there is a key point. Why does he care "what the online hordes thought"? Who are these correspondents anyway? Many are anonymous and often semi-literate, most have no idea of how to frame an argument. They are usually intemperate. No one knows how many of them may be emotionally disturbed 13-year-olds. They are certainly not even a random sample of the population that might furnish the reader with an unbiased idea of what the community thinks.
One of the greatest shortcomings of the professional media today is that they pay so much attention to what appears in social media. It may be a sadly mistaken idea that they are representative, or it may be that it is simply easier to find a basis there for a story.
Certainly it is an advance that everybody now has the opportunity to express themselves directly if they like. But that does not mean that we have to devote much time to what they say, particularly if we need to cultivate our own credibility.
17
I think what one misses is the entertainment value, not the content, of which there is little of note.
I very much endorse your second paragraph. Interrupting an article on a serious topic - in an otherwise serious newspaper - with screen shots of twitter feeds is distracting, annoying and unhelpful. Social media becomes the story. Some stories are actually about how a story received attention on social media. That's absurd.
2
Newspapers generally are in hard shape these days with loss of advertising revenue to the net and ownership concentration resulting in layoffs to newsrooms. Sadly, fewer reporters are expected to do more with less. The result is frequently looking online for local stories. Some papers are managing - especially large ones in large markets, but even the big ones struggle. There is also a prejudice by some who speak of print newspapers as "dead tree news" with snide remarks like "You do know they only refresh ever 24 hours." But still, newspapers continue to not only compete with electronic news media on hard news but to come up with impressive long-form journalism that, to me, set the standard for journalistic excellent. So hurrah for the gallant crew at the NYT for your hard work and high standards and thank you for being a dependable source for news, opinion and interesting entertainment. You are a constant companion.
2
Total endorsement of what the writer suggest. After suffering from a brain aneurysm and the subsequent brain surgery and beating the odds to a full recovery, my routine has evolved to a morning meditation with my latte looking at the Bay, the Cascades Mountains and the Montlake Cut, probably a few water fowl, maybe a juvenile bald eagle. After thanking the universe for my son and my husband and for being alive, I read the Axios newsletter and the NYTimes print edition and the morning digital briefing along with a few exceptional articles like this one. This routine sets my day on a path to a quiet mind and quiet body.
24
Thank you for your inspiring letter, Gina! Congratulations on your full recovery and for your lovely description of the beautiful way you begin each day.
I've been a reader of the NYT print edition for over 50 years and I also subscribe to the digital edition. The digital version is great for keeping up breaking news alerts, but I can't bring myself to part with my print subscription. I notice that my brain simply feels better after I've spent some time relaxing in my favorite chair slowly perusing the "real" paper.
This piece is right on. I would love to read the local paper in the morning - or evening - as was possible when we read the day's news after dinner in the evening. Last Sunday's edition, delivered two hours late, contained three sections from two different area papers, and was missing two sections. It did contain local obituaries and was delivered by a carrier who needs the job and has given unparalleled service, my two reasons for continuing to subscribe. Print editions are a dying species.
10
I believe that there is a lot of garbage in the Sunday edition of the NY Times, clearly desperate editorial attempts to fill space. But the act of consciously setting aside time to read print news creates a space in one's schedule to pause and assimilate what is happening in the larger world. It requires a gesture of collected consciousness that, as you say, may now be dying with print editions.
Let reason prevail. I take what I read on social media with the proverbial grain of salt. When I read a newspaper, I feel that I am getting some perspective on a newsworthy event that is not available on social media and for sure not on network news where political biases abound. Think Fox News and MSNBC.
The Lester Holts and Scott Pelleys are in short supply. And, now Scott Pelley is now back at 60 minutes because his ratings weren't high enough. PBS is wonderful but sadly not subscribed to as it should be. Bravo for the author of this piece. Too bad is off writing a book until June. We readers will welcome him back by reading whatever he puts forth.
2
Who has the time to read a whole newspaper anymore! I am retired, but busier than ever so I find catching snippets of cable news and reading newspapers online waiting or having someone drive me somewhere works for me. But, I do enjoy a paper Wall Street Journal or NY Times while slowing down for a coffee at Starbucks (but don't like the $4 pricetag and dirty hands anymore.)
3
I could not BEAR to be without my San Francisco Chronicle delivered to my driveway every day. I don't have time to read every article, but find myself reading about some event (local) of which I was completely unaware. There's a lot to be said for turning all those pages, reading the headlines, and then delving into an interesting story. And how could I do without the latest on the Warriors and the Giants? I LOVE The Sporting Green in The Chron.
I like the digital NY Times for the Opinion Writers, book reviews, movie reviews, etc. But I'm not quite as obsessed as I am about my print newspaper. The paper is also closely identified with my morning coffee!
8
I read a mix of newspapers and on-line newspapers - that is, The New York Times on-line and The Wall Street Journal and my local paper in newsprint. This allows me to spread out actual papers on the table with breakfast AND to read The Times on my computer several times a day. I like the latter because a) breaking news is marked in red with the time of the story (especially helpful with new facts) and b) the blue items that refer back to previous stories (the Russian who was just "poisoned" in England referred back to Litvineno's poisoning by the Russians with polonium in England years ago). I get the newest news and read the past news to establish a fuller framework for what is happening. I also like The Times' habit of listing other, relevant stories at the bottom of a column so there is an opportunity to read those, too. THE JOURNAL has incomparably wonderful opinion pages and analysts whose insight, experience and knowledge cannot be matched. (The Times' opinion pages are one-note and are one reason I no longer get the paper.) The local paper - an obvious necessity to keep up with what is happening locally, even if their national coverage is sub-par.
And, yes, I proudly identify as a newsaholic!
4
What you miss by avoiding social that you won't get from your print news sources (you really won't):
Obituaries from distant friends and relatives who have passed. This one factor offsets everything else. There's a reason why new journos work the obituary beat first. It is actually the most important thing.
I lost a friend I'd worked in retail with all through college. We had talked one year even late into a Christmas Eve. He drifted off, I had personal things going on. One day I wondered what he'd been up to. I went to his FB page and discovered he had died suddenly TWO YEARS earlier. I cried for two days, two years too late.
For all the sneering social media snobs, I say this: I actually CARE what people are up to! I love seeing their personal news notes, or stories of interest from this hometown or that hometown I've lived in (I've had many). No print news source is going to give me this, and yes, this is NEWS, because ultimately, news is local, whatever locales you call home.
3
I'm with you. If anything, I wish my FB friends would post more "original content".
My respect for Farhad increased when he mentioned a competitor's newsletter as an example of an electronic digest. Well done! Great column!
4
I'm always reminded of that great New Yorker cartoon: "My desire to be well-informed is currently at odds with my desire to remain sane.” My solution was to rid myself of television news, local, national and especially--especially--cable. That seemed to diminish the torrent of ridiculousness to a much more tolerable level. I still keep up with the news primarily through the print edition of the NYT (for which I am willing to fork over $80 per month) as well as visits to a few news websites to keep tabs on the day's events. Bashing the newspaper industry is the new sport of the ignorant.
7
Psychologists actually do recommend to stop reading the news for people with chronic anxiety.
1
Thank you. One of the things that bugs me about the way most people get their "news" these days is the lack of the why. (Even the NYTimes is guilty of this I feel at times.) "Breaking news" and news feeds on "social" media are great at telling the who, what, when, and how but are often missing the why, the context. Best thing I did was shut down Facebook, and restrict my Twitter time. And I get it about all the commentary. Even NPR is too much commentary and shorter stories these days, so I've pretty much stopped listening.
4
The "fact from fiction" skill is enabled and enhanced by ethics and education.
8
I'm definitely in the group with a digital subscription for my tablet. I like scanning the Top Stories and Popular Stories and bookmark interesting articles to read. And then I read them and listen to podcasts.
Turning off "News Alerts" on your phone is also a good way to feel less overwhelmed while not limiting your news to a few sources. Just scroll through when you want to and you'll still see all the same stories that would have been sent to you as alerts, but on your own time instead of constantly.
4
I grew up on newspapers and loved them. I dropped my local big city newspaper a decade ago when it fired all the real journalists, hiring kids cheap.
Why the nostalgia for print? The paper quality is terrible, the ink comes off onto everything, including the furniture, and there are more ads than articles on the pages. It used to be relaxing to read the daily with coffee; now it's constant jumping around to follow articles that continue on 3-4 pages, in paragraphs. My library is virtually all digital, the only physical books for cooking and watercolor. I don't watch TV news, couldn't be less interested in social media, and it's easy enough to find real news online. One can subscribe to all the major papers and still not be 'well-informed', as none of them have the resources to go into the same amount of depth as single genre news sites. For that reason alone, newspapers are woefully behind in the coverage of many serious issues we as citizens should be aware of.
One browses digital newspapers the same way one browsed print back in the day, serendipitously or end to end. Everything's here in the digital version, no reason not to miss anything. Ignoring the goofy clickbait titles is easy when you remember they don't reflect the article anyway. Browse away.
Digital newspapers can go everywhere I go, all on one small device, and require neither room to open, good lighting nor wet wipes afterward. It's the best thing that ever happened to my reading life.
2
I agree with you jrb 100%! I read the NYT, NY Daily News, NYer, other periodicals and books on my iPad. The print is much easier for me to read and it certainly takes up less space on the breakfast table! I delight in the supplementary videos, beautiful photos and myriad letters that paper cannot offer. I feel liberated by the compactness of this miraculous machine and love the fact that I can save articles forever. I also certainly appreciate updates, especially in this insanely volatile time. And then there are all those trees.........
5
This sounds similar to my plan - no television, no smart phone, just a daily newspaper and multiple news sources online. Leads to a way more peaceful and less chaotic existence, I think.
As for politicians tweeting and twittering, I believe it is beneath the dignity that the office is supposed to maintain. Does the Queen of England twitter?
7
Lenore’s husband:
“Does the Queen of England twitter?”
https://mobile.twitter.com/elizabethukrpg?lang=en
Well, you did ask.
1
On the internet I find myself reading too many stories from different sites about the same narrow set of topics. I recently began subscribing again to the Daily News. I was surprised to see the extent to which my internet habits had caused me to stop paying attention to certain local issues in NYC.
5
We subscribe to print editions of the NY Times and the SF Chronicle. I will confess I read some articles in the Times online--I hate reading glasses, so when I'm bleary-eyed, I can just enlarge the print. But the Chronicle is, to make a bad pun, chronically disappointing. They have an occasional article that is worth the time, but most are from the NY Times or AP. (Their art and architecture critics are wonderful, as are the movie critic, Mick LaSalle and the outdoors columnist, Tom Stienstra.) But we do feel it's important to support local journalism. I get much of my news from NPR--I turn it on whenever I'm doing work around the house. "On the Media" is a gem.
6
Great column, Mr. Manjoo. I subscribe to digital NYT...I peruse the headlines, see if they are of interest to me, and then choose what I might want to read. I do this usually a couple of time during the day. I have that luxury because I am retired. I love the NYT but I do subscribe to the San Francisco Chronicle (print edition) on Sundays only. After the Presidential election of 2016, I had to start limiting the times per week that I would watch the Evening News on television. This was for self preservation...did I really want to drive myself insane, No I did not...some of my friends were doing a great job of it.
I feel that any form of Social Media, is the main contributing factor to the ruination of mankind. I would never and have never used it. I cannot imagine a more inane platform. It is brainwashing the American public...If Twitter and Facebook were to disappear tomorrow, what a better world we might be able to reclaim.
6
I think breaking news got broken long before the Boston Marathon bombing. My benchmark is the SNL skit from the 80s (I think) where Al Franken portrays a network news reporter on the floor at a political convention wearing a space helmet like device with a radio antenna on it, so he can converse directly with the booth and the studio. What ensues is a hilarious game of telephone where false rumors become validated as true as the message makes the rounds with each turn providing verification. The rumour mill had invaded the prestige media. But this has long been the state of affairs, from stay at home wives on the phone with each other, to talking over the back yard fence, to the guys down at the diner, and back into pre-history. The only difference from social media techology today is speed. So, agreed with Mr. Manjoo; slowing down is the key, not so much the tech itself, which like all technology is inanimate and has no agency. Even so, I far prefer the on-line Times to the print version, if only for the removal of those inky stains on furniture and clothes from newsprint.
Years ago, I took a month's long trip without turning off newspaper delivery. When I returned, I faced a month's worth of newspapers that I felt I had to read. I quickly realized that most of the "news" in the paper was transitory. An example would be an article about the murder of someone. I am sorry someone died, but do I need to know the details? I wouldn't change my life with that "news." So, now I try to read only articles that I would be worthy of my time if the news was a week old. This leads to avoiding the trash and/or opinion that masquerades as "news" nowadays.
4
The author is correct! We need to track contributors to social media. They should be required to identify themselves using their actual IP address. Then we can track them and find out whether they are just trying to mislead us.
1
If you were previously getting your news from Twitter and Facebook then, frankly, I don't consider you competent to give good advice.
4
This really makes sense, and should be noted that it comes from a technology correspondent with the NYTimes.
2
Good for you kid.
2
i would love a hard copy of the New York Times. But i live in a rural area in wisconsin, a place that would benefit from more news sources. most seem to rely on facebook for news.
1
I live in rural western Michigan and really wish I could get a hard copy of the NYT but nobody is willing to deliver it in my area. My local library gets it but frustratingly they allow it to be lent out so the copies that are available to read in the reading room are at least a week old. The digital version is curated but I wish to self curate so just give me the daily paper and I’ll choose which articles to read thank you.
I would LOVE to go back to reading the printed NYT. But it costs $3 a day where I live, twice that on Sundays. Home delivery is not available in my rural area. So that's about $24 per week, roughly $100 a year. My online subscription is less than a tenth of that.
Please, NYT, come up with a way to make it cheaper for those of us who can't get home delivery. Maybe a special debit card, like a bus pass, that would allow us to buy it over the counter at a cheaper rate?
2
The real issue is not that social media pumps out the news at lightning speed - the wire services have been doing that since the assassination of Lincoln - it's that they do it without the care, thought or intervention of editors, copy editors or other watchdogs. In print journalism, these are traditionally our guardians against the false, frivolous or simply malicious. If social media began to put such scrutinizing eyes on its flow of babble, we might get a more truthful picture of the world. As a first step, I'd suggest no website permit postings by unverified or cloaked signatories. Are you listening Facebook and Twitter?
2
Low Information Diet. It does a body good.
2
Too bad NYT readers priced out of home delivery no longer have this option. Given the choice of over $1000 a year for home delivery in NYC or digital, guess what those of us who are facing higher taxes and costs here can afford?
3
Counterpoint: I used to work in print news, and it's one of the reasons why I no longer find print news to be sufficient. I've seen the editorial blinders from the inside—and I'm not talking about "liberal media bias." I'm talking about the bias toward the voices and views of the already privileged and well-connected, and against voices and views that rock the boat. I'm talking about the bias toward the source who's easy to talk to and easy to like. I'm talking about the bias toward trying to predict the news rather than report it after the fact, especially when it comes to the conducting and reporting of opinion polls. I'm talking about the bias toward stenography over investigative reporting and healthy skepticism.
If more of the general public knew the phrase, "news judgment" would be in the Oxymoron Hall of Fame alongside "military intelligence" and "jumbo shrimp." Remember, it was not just print news, but the first name in print news, that brought us the E-mailpocalypse.
1
Every citizen should think about where people far more powerful than he or she is get their news.
1
Yes, yes, yes. Commentary is not the same as news, and sound bites are the worst. Even thoughtful, detailed commentary should be read for perspective, not to tell you how to think.
1
Before digital proliferated, when the wire services were the closest thing to instant reporting, space limited what one could "print." Column inches were scarce, and reporters/writers proudly competed for that prized real estate and byline. News was divided by topic into sections/departments. Jumps were used when valuable front page space ran out, so you wrote tightly to avoid that dreaded "continued on page XX" tag line because you knew no one bothered to read that far. No opinions were tolerated except in the Editorial section. For wires, news alerts of 80 characters made writing them an art. Three-paragraph covers were published within 3 minutes of initial alert. There was no tolerance for sloppiness and silly mistakes; corrections were issued by red-faced reporters within minutes of hitting that initial "send" button. Now, speed and soft news trump accuracy and hard reportage. Publishing space is unlimited, so reporters and writers just do brain-dumps on virtual pages instead of using the basic "upside-down umbrella" to prioritize info in an article. Everyone who can type or blog thinks s/he is a "journalist," and opinions (often hilariously conceived, poorly written and ill-informed) masquerade as "news." No wonder readers can't differentiate between fact and fiction! Just spoon-feed them the latest show biz fluff and partisan tripe; facts be damned. All they need do is swallow. No parsing of ideas required.
2
After it seemed like 20 “breaking news” an hour on cable and online, I too went back to newspapers. The NYTimes, the WSJ, and I think you miss very good reporting if you don’t add Washington Post. Never read WaPo before, but their reporters are fantastic. I would rather know something the next day after the initial hysteria and inaccuracies are gone.
1
I wholeheartedly agree with the author. I read the NYT on my iPad because where I live, I’d have to walk the entire length of my (large) apartment building to retrieve the paper from the lobby. The iPad’s screen is big enough to allow for some serendipitous discovery of articles. I too disconnected from social media (during the primaries before the last election). Life has become much more calm and relaxed since then.
I would love it if the NYT would offer an iPad version of the paper as it was published this morning, with the same front page (instead of Top Stories, which is a trending mechanism). Other papers do that. Sadly the NYT iPad app uses many social media techniques to promote articles, rather than letting the editors do their job. They allow motion jpeg and video clips in ads in the iPad app, which is a distracting nuisance that the paper version wouldn’t present. And the editing process doesn’t get rid of old articles, some of which hang around for weeks. I’d rather the iPad app would just present the articles published that morning, and only that morning (with the option to go look at previous days).
4
I wish I had the money to get a subscription to prints newspapers: unfortunately, as a student I don’t have the money to do so. But luckily, my city’s library has almost every print newspapers you could want from all around the world. It’s nice to be able to read them there.
News on Facebook and twitter are shared so quickly and easily, that people forget to take a step back to think if what they read was true. And most of them only read the headlines, as if the whole article wasn’t worth reading. One could argue that “someone had to write this, so it must be true.” Writing something wrong because of missing informations, or sometimes lies to defend an ideology is way easier to do on the internet than on paper.
3
Internet news distortion is not unprecedented. TV news has long had a high entertainment/news quotient.
But for decades there were only three, four or five national TV news providers, so a national debate revolved around fewer stars.
Now, news sources are a galaxy, rather than a small constellation. The debate is more like crowd chatter.
1
I pointed my browser to nytimes.com until this year when I could not find the setting to turn off the breaking news alerts. Those broke through at increasing intervals. So I now load the sfchronicle e-edition which is actually a five-step process to eliminate the animated table of contents etc to get to the paper-like front page, but its worth it.
This was enjoyable. I am not into "social" except for networking but I spend so much time online. I need to consume news more slowly and deeply and agree I would feel better and probably be better informed by doing so.
What I want is for the digital mediums to help me with that experience. Say, no moving GIFs on the homepage of the NYT? Less hair on fire reporting? Headlines that match the story? Stories that have a conclusion instead of wandering off, I huge problem with online news.
See, I never read newspapers because I hate touching low-quality news print! And in this day and age I have no room or need for physical newspapers and magazines.
I have a range of experiences in how I've gotten news over the years. I grew up with newspapers and news magazines, and, of course, there were radio and TV. As a print addict, I never paid much heed to the latter two. In my city, we had two dailies until an 8-month long strike killed one in 1993. Subscribed to one, read the other when possible. During the strike, TV was the only alternative. Talk about lack of depth. Or breadth, for that matter. At the time, studies showed that far more people got their news from TV than from print, and I wondered how people could stand to be so ill-informed. Still, newspapers are not without their problems. They could, in the days of "Extra, extra, read all about it" have their share of rush reporting. Furthermore, most newspapers have both a bias of some sort (liberal, conservative;business, labor) and a focus that leaves out a create deal that is not of interest to the bulk of their readers (arts coverage, anyone?)
Now I get the bulk of my news from online editions of the NYT and WaPo with forays into other publications such as the New Yorker, The Atlantic, WSJ, etc. I use Facebook only to stay in touch with far-flung family and friends. I also, somewhat guiltily, watch some prime-time MSNBC shows. A big problem for me is access to such staggering amounts of information on subjects that interest me. Hard to tear myself away. The other problem is that local news now takes a backseat, and I'm much less informed than before about my city.
6
Unfortunately, the New York Times digital pay wall exacerbates the problem. With the Times online you have access to the same quality reporting as you get in the print version. But most people won't be interested in paying to read an article they are interested in on Facebook. They'll just hit the pay wall, skip it, and move on to the next.
While I understand the importance of avoiding social media and online commentary (as well as cable television and talk radio), I don't see the necessity of reading a newspaper in print when you can access the same articles online in a more convenient format. In addition to the drawbacks mentioned in this article - size of the paper, the size of the print, the messy ink, etc. - the amount of space taken up by advertising in print newspapers is much more intrusive and distracting than online ads. The New York Times website even has a page for "today's paper" where you can view the exact articles that were published in print that day.
1
Thanks for the interesting and useful article. I do not participate in social media, generally, but do read news largely online (NYT and WSJ). I think the biggest thing I miss out on is serendipity. When reading the Sunday paper, which we do get in paper format, I often come across something which is interesting but I'd never have seen it online because I never "meander" like that electronically.
And Mr. Manjoo is right. I often waste a lot of time by reading what is essentially speculative blather when I should just wait for the facts. And of course, what can really waste time is reading (and writing) comments!
4
Print i dead. I regularly read NYT online, and haven't picked up a print newspaper and read it in my hand for 10 years. Sorry.
"You don’t have to read a print newspaper to get a better relationship with the news."
No, you don't HAVE TO.
But I think the NYT would advise otherwise.
Buy a subscription to this paper and your local paper today.
Whenever possible, always pick up the print version of a publication.
And read it. Slowly. You will be happy you did.
2
I just allowed my last print subscription to expire (sorry New Yorker). I am far from the cutting edge, but had found that I was not getting through the print magazines and newspapers and consuming more and more online. So rather than let them pile up only to go (unread) to the recycle bin, I let the various subscriptions lapse. I do miss spending Sunday morning at a café with the Sunday New York Times, but it has been a long time since I enjoyed that ritual.
Somehow sharing a print newspaper over a leisurely brunch is social but reading on your phone or tablet is not...
1
I stopped reading newspapers because they were too time consuming - and then I got caught in websites!
Even newspapers and magazines nowadays, it seems, substitute analysis for the facts. You’re always assumed to have learned the facts someplace else. My joke is that if Jesus returned, the headlines would say something like “IMPACT OF JESUS’ RETURN ON GLOBALIZATION TRENDS MULLED” and remember when Time, Newsweek, and US News and World Report were nes magazines?
In some ways I’d rather get my news once a week than on a daily basis, anyhow. I want “broken nes” mor than “breaking news.”
The most relevant part of this story is he was better informed by not following the news minute by minute. That's a lesson for all of us.
2
One of the things I hate most in print or online: screenshots of everybody's tweets!
1
A less expensive option to receiving the print version of The Times is to subscribe to the digital version, but select "Today's Paper" under the masthead at the top of the front page.
2
If responsible journalists would stop using Twitter it would degenerate into what it really is: propaganda and celebrity gossip. You should be the first by closing @fmanjoo.
5
I have been a regular reader of the NYT since the mid-1960's; it is fundamentally not the same paper; hard facts and insightful questions are no longer the coin of the reporters (and dare I say editors?) realm; the in-depth international coverage is completing gone (I imagine due to the cost constraints). Farhad Manjo is right "People don’t just post stories — they post their takes on stories, often quoting key parts of a story to underscore how it proves them right, so readers are never required to delve into the story to come up with their own view." This is true of NYT, the once outstanding McNeil Lehrer News Hour and nearly everywhere else. If there was a publication that provided me with the facts and the questions - hopefully in print, I would subscribe. I read many different print publications and am perfectly capable of forming my own opinion on the issues of the day, like most if not all other NYT readers. Nevertheless, I continue subscribe as I want to financially support the NYT so it doesn't go out of business.
4
The Times could help things along considerably by putting the important news stories on the upper right, where they were traditionally run and where they belong. It's all opinion and click-bait (some would say opinion is click-bait) on the top righthand side of the Times homepage.
2
I wasn't aware the Times had hired the pretentious boyfriend from "You've Got Mail"
1
You will find that when you read the print version stories that you never saw on line will appear. It is just like all those people who believe that they can do deep research online and never go to a library. You cannot wander around a website. It can cut you off from things you did not think of yourself. I run into friends who only read the Times on line who never saw this story or that op ed.
4
I have been contemplating the same news philosophy.
I have thought of it in terms of simplistic term.
Watching tv news is like drinking from a firehose.
Far too much and far too repetitive.
Breaking News is used so frequently for all political news it makes me wonder what I should pay attention to.
It all seems to resemble chicken little the sky is falling.
I often feel that the news orgs faux vs msm are in a constant battle in the description of the attire of the emperors new clothes or lack there of. Faux news keeps describing the emperors new outfits. Mainstream media screens he isn't wearing any clothes!
At last I have heard some one describe Trumps speaking as a word salad. That it is. I would love to see his uttering broke down to specific word counts....for example "the best" or my favorite "trust me" phrases that make the hair on the back of my neck standup when uttered by Trump or a used car salesman.
The decline of print journalism has also lost the granularity of local news. In our little town it is difficult to figure out as no news is reported. One has to do an Open public records request. In papers even less than 50 years ago the mayors cat crossing the street made headlines. I reading old papers for genealogy research report minutia of daily life that such as the "the smith family is entertaining visitors from out of town etc. The police blotter, letters from overseas soldiers were reported. Scout news, church news deaths, etc.
2
I love print newspapers, and it used to be that I would feel discombobulated if I didn't get my morning paper. However, I discovered that the national and international news articles in my local paper were often truncated versions of articles appearing in national papers like the NYT. I didn't see the point in continuing to subscribe. The NYT wouldn't deliver to my door, leaving the paper outside the apartment complex gate for anyone to grab on the way out, so that was also a bust. Digital subscriptions, public news media, and newspapers from other cities and countries that post links to their articles on twitter are my news sources now. I still miss having a print newspaper in the mornings, though.
1
Why is an article that recommends, basically, avoiding compulsive behavior necessary?
5
Primarily to make people such as yourself feel superior. It's just a bit of this guy's personal experience and there are some people who should follow what he's done. I've had to ask friends to not share items with me all day.
1
Each article and each comment comes with its own handy facebook and twitter buttons.
3
Great name, haha!
This is another misinformed person Bernie Sanders did the exact opposite of what you said to look up his tweet and you'll see.
2
The biggest benefit of print? No comments section. That's where I get bogged down after every piece I read.
20
An excellent alternative for those wanting to save the cost and inconvenience of print is a digital replica of it. The Times doesn't offer one as far as I know but should consider it. The Financial Times does, and it's an excellent way to read content without the distractions Mr Manjoo so beautifully exposes.
6
It used to and I frequently used it even when I got the print edition. I am now going through "controlled withdrawal" having stopped the weekday editions while still keeping the weekend editions. We'll see.
I also agree with RH. What the Times prints as news has been slowly morphing into sets of opinions melded with facts. This has been going on for some years. I strongly suggest you minimize or completely eliminate adjectives and adverbs from your articles. Or at least offer this as an option to your reades.
2
Can the Times please, please, PLEASE move the opinion pieces away from the top of the screen? Look at your own print version. You would never clutter the print version with so many opinions above the fold.
If you want to know why so many conservatives turn away from the Times, simply look at your homepage. Make it a NEWSpaper again. You can have your opinions, of course. But right now, you give them more priority than you do the news.
27
It's ironic that subscribers who rely only on print won't be able to read this article until tomorrow and may not be able to comment on it. :)
4
All well and good, but.....
Our local paper (The Tulsa World) has been getting thinner and thinner with each passing month. I used to eat breakfast and down two mugs of coffee while reading the morning paper. Now, I often finish the paper before the end of my first mug of coffee....and this after I have cut back on my breakfast.
Systematically excising content to save money strikes me as not being a viable long term strategy.
Yes, I would prefer to get most of my information from print.... but I don't see that as a workable strategy, at least not in Oklahoma.
9
The same fate befell my local paper. They cut the cooking columnist, as an example. It wasn't until she was gone that I appreciated that it was her work that inspired my interest in cooking (and a binder filled with the "keepers", which I snipped out from the paper). I was so hard to watch my paper shrivel down to nothing that it came to the point where I did not want to open it to find out what had been nixed next.
I'm happy to see this, just finished slowly reading articles in today's paper delivered to my door about the time I was making morning coffee. However,
there've been countless times that I couldn't rely on the Times for "all the news"-- other sources, including You Tube channels, covered the 2016 election in much more depth; they were needed most of all when the Times failed in its coverage of the Clinton-Sanders primaries. What could have been different if the Times had been objective in its reporting?
2
Lucky you to be able to afford NYT home delivery still! Alas, you must be in a much higher income bracket than this 30-year subscriber now priced out.
2
Me too, KKW. I'm always surprised at the number of commenters who can shrug off the cost of print newspapers. I have to look at every dollar I spend very carefully, even if I wish it were otherwise. For several years now I have shared the cost of a NYT digital subscription with a friend, and I'm sure that price will be going up just as the print version does every year. I stopped the Washington Post after 2012 due to cost and declining quality, so my shared online access is all I have.
1
Please, NYT, give us depth and accuracy online! It's not the format that dictates this, it's the editor!
Please free us from the "snarky" tone of voice that a recent study covered on the PBS Newshour found was Americans' biggest objection to news media. Please restore the quality of the NYT's writing and language usage to its former glory. Both of these weaknesses seem to be justified by the (false) necessity for speed, associated with technology. But they are styles, not media.
Please restore the NYT's credibility and influence by giving us depth, accuracy, and quality of thought and writing. Become part of the solution, don't accelerate the chaos.
15
VMB - "Please restore the NYT's credibiliity and influence by giving us depth, accuracy, and quality of thought and writing." Agreed. The degree of "snark", and the bleeding of opinion into what are supposed to be hard news articles seemed to reach its zenith during the 2016 election. Very disappointing.
2
Read the comments: I dearly miss having my morning newspaper. I don't use it for the cat box, too messy. Walk to the library all year long here in the UP. Use internet for online papers free. Much opinionated at 70 so post to articles open for comments. Glad to see these open but the highly controversial articles are still closed so went from independent news sites (now closed) to facebook (now banned) to Utube (now mostly irrelevant) to Goggle + where you can still find me.
I am sad that when I offer my fresh newspapers to people after reading on the bus, nobody wants them. I remember when people would gladly pick up the newspaper I handed them. We still subscribe to two newspapers and The Week, and I have electronic versions of several papers. But the disconnect from electronics when you snap open a paper is a relief that more people need to rediscover.
Good luck with your book.
8
There are some interesting thoughts here and it's definitely a worthwhile experiment. However I find it actually funny that the writer thinks that he's "more informed" by reading only the New York Times and The Economist.
There is definitely a discussion to be had about how sweeping away the gatekeepers nearly entirely, editors, publishers, those who filtered and checked the news they reported, has had many negative consequences as well as positive ones. However the wide-eyed innocent belief on display here that outlets like the NYT and the Economist are giving you a "more well-informed" take that's not colored by ideology is just silly.
If I read only the Economist I'd have an essentially conservative view of the news, mixed with a healthy dose of neoconservativism and very definitely an Anglo chauvinism toward countries like France, let alone countries in the Middle East.
If I read only the New York Times then I might think "moderate" mainstream Democrats like Chuck Schumer giving speeches claiming that God promised Palestine to the Jewish people as he did yesterday were perfectly acceptable, mainstream views.
I liked the article, I do a mix of unplugging now and then, and have never done more on Facebook than visit every few months for roughly five minutes, and it's an interesting topic. However the author is very definitely not "well-informed" and his astonishingly naive and well, uninformed claims about news sources demonstrate that.
5
"However I find it actually funny that the writer thinks that he's "more informed" by reading only the New York Times and The Economist."
-------
Or the SF Chronicle, lol!
1
@ MJ: When I was growing up in San Francisco there was an article somewhere ranking the best major city newspapers, and I was puzzled that the Chronicle wasn't even in the list, since it was the only paper I really knew at that point. Then at the end of the article I saw that they noted that they didn't even consider the SF Chronicle because while San Francisco qualified as a major city, the Chronicle was so terrible it didn't qualify as a newspaper.
Ah, I wish more people were reading this article! I fiercely cling to my print media because of all of the listed reasons, plus a few more.
One thing you get from print that you miss in digital are the low key stories. The non-click bait stories which are important, but not exciting. I make it a habit to at least glance at each page (except sports, which I have almost zero interest in) and look at the headlines. I then look at the lead paragraph on stories that look interesting or important. Then I read in depth the ones that seem both interesting and important. I often then also check out the digital version to be directed to links to references, resources, etc.
You also miss most local news by going all digital. Your local paper is the best place to find out what is happening in your community (although I do have to say that my local paper is MUCH less important since being taken over by Gannett!). Local papers should focus on local issues - and it can take a long time to build the story to national importance (hello Bridgegate!).
I will continue to take my news in print (or it's equivalent) for these reasons.
5
I'll be glad when streaming and all else fails. It's all lo-fi anyway, and panders to short attention spans and the elimination of depth and texture. I will stick to physical media, thank you.
5
Please NYTimes let us view the print version as a PDF online as part of our digital subscription.
I do not like disposing of paper newspapers.
7
You can see "today's paper" by clicking on those words next to the date on the digital version.
1
Yes! I subscribe to The NY Times and sporadically to the Washington Post. Although the Post annoys me with their click bait sounding headlines.
I’m not on social media, largely because I don’t care what the herd thinks. Most of them are C and D students anyway.
And I think the comment section is the worst thing to happen to humanity. I write that as I leave this comment. I think the Times would be wise to eliminate its comment section as NPR has.
5
Great article. I read the NY Times digitally, but I'd rather have it in paper layout form. I just don't want the paper waste and the larger subscription expense. The NY Times "Today's paper" format gets close to helping keep the paper 'feel' - but it's not quite there yet.
Expanding on JS, Seattle's comment (which are great). Print papers also "prioritize" the news for you. It's part of the services you are paying for when you get the news in an organized presentation. Professionals present important things on the front page, silly things in the back, etc. Obviously, that's where editorial bias can crept in, but it can be a balance if you use your head. Look at any tabloid at the checkout to see bias run amuck - sensation over substance. In essence, much of social media (which I don't partake) can get turned into the ultimate tabloid press.
3
the reason i don't read print newspapers boils down to clutter. and expense. all those newspapers pile up and are a drag to get rid of. don't have any magazine subscriptions for the same reason. i read the nytimes and the boston globe every day, and if a particular story piques my interest i'll go the web site of the newspaper where the story originated and read that papers account.
1
People generally have a herd mentality and are fairly easy to stampede, especially when they either don't have real critical thinking skills or have ceded them to sloganeering; MAGA, Lock Her Up, etc. Among the herd instincts is to have the latest gadgets and gossip, and the business world knows that. Ergo, people are easily stampeded into the realm of commerce, which includes communication gadgets and social media, a realm controlled by business enterprises. Separating the wheat from the chaff takes work, and too many people are not willing to really think for themselves, including assessing their own addiction to smart phones and social media. Mo-o-o-o
3
You can opt to reduce the noise of social media "news" by consuming it selectively. You can also turn of notifications of news sources (and other apps) or simply not use those apps at all.
It's an interesting experiment but I'd be curious if Mr. Manjoo intends to stay away from digital new sources permanently. I'd guess not.
I heartily agree, Mr. Manjoo. This extends to the rest of the digital world too, including my least favorite format: email. We are bombarded with a steeply rising crescendo of immediate information and demands, with almost everyone feeling more and more stressed. Because we are marinating in this bath of digital urgency, we tend not to notice what is happening to us. We are consumed by the moment, and flit from news cycle to news cycle. Last week it was guns, this week it is trade, and next week, even though both of these are huge, important issues, we will be on to something else. We are a digitally-fueled society with the attention span of a gnat. I go off the grid every August. What a relief that is.
1
On paper or on line, 'news' stories in the New York Times, even more than other relatively moderate national and international media, have become tinged with biased terms indicating an underlying anti-Trump bias. I cannot abide the editorials in the WSJ, but I respect that paper's firm and bright line between its news and editorial functions. Washington Post, somewhere between the two - editorial/opinion way too prominent but at leased (mostly) clearly labelled. If the Grey Lady wants to continue to be regarded as the Newspaper of Record, its reporters - again, mostly the White House crew, need to better observe the distinction between news and opinion.
2
I love newspapers! And I don't consider consuming them to be environmental desecration because I use discarded newsprint in several ways, namely for washing windows and as packing material. If I had a cat I'd line the litter box with it. Yes, I know that newspapers use chemicals that are probably bad, but what do you think goes into your electronic devices, and what happens when they are replaced? As for the trees, well, they're a renewable resource.
I feel as though I'm living in the best world possible. I can get the NYT for free on the campus where I'm a student, I love to sit down in the morning and read our local paper w/a strong cup of coffee, and I love subscribing to the on-line version of the NYT where I can indulge in the real estate section. NYT: I couldn't live without you in any format.
1
Mr. Manjoo's commentary is similar to my experience in transitioning to the "old-way," of news consumption. In November 2017, I quit (cancelled or de-activated) all my social media accounts sans LinkedIn. I proceeded to move all my subscriptions from digital to print (some are digital and print now like the NYT's). The monthly (or annual) cost of print subscriptions turn many millennials away from the print product but I think it's worth every penny. At least, one can access a digital version of the daily paper for the NYT and WSJ, if the print service isn't an option.
Mr. Manjoo's point regarding Twitter and Facebook is correct. Unfortunately, some traditional new sources participate in the click-bait frenzy, which includes the NYTs.
2
Online reading tends to be less attentive, and lead one to missing things- at least for me. My chief sources of news have been NY Times and the Economist. Back in the day I read each all the way through. I still get much of my news from those two sources. But I tend to flit between things that catch my interest. I also flit off to look up random things an article may mention. So I seldom read something all the way through, and seldom read new things. This is unfortunate. E.g., reading finance articles (not something I would have done but for cover to cover habit) enabled me to do well when work required me to understand project finance.
It also seems online content in NY Times, Economist, and other traditional new sources is less dense than it was in print, requiring less from the reader. If true, it's because that fits with how people read online.
I subscribe to print edition of Sunday Times and read NYT online the rest of the week. I also read several other print media online, including Time magazine and Washington Post. In fact, most of my news comes from online versions of print media. Even my Twitter feed is dominated by print media alerts.
Where does that put me in the dichotomy of this column? Am I a "print" person or a "digital" one? My answer is that I lean much more toward the print end.
I know reading NYT (or any similar source) is a different experience in print than reading the same news online. So there's a gray area here. But, either way, it's still The New York Times — not some conspiracy blog.
Personally, I don't think "Avoid Social" is a required part of the solution. It's how you use social media that matters more. If your feed is mainly from reliable (especially print-based) sources — and you check on those that are not known before you trust them — you should be okay. It's when you're incoming news is overloaded with "viral" stories from who-knows-where or from friends repeating what they heard from some dubious source — that's when the wheels come off the cart.
1
I'll go one better than this. I stopped reading news from any sort except my local newspaper. I no longer read the NYT but maintain my digital subscription so my wife can continue to read it. I read this article because my daughter sent it to me and said that she though that I would like it. If you think the benefits that the author of this article has gained, you ought to try what I have done. My local paper contains mainly state and local news, but any major national or international stories will appear. The paper does not have an op-ed page with the all the various opinions expressed there. I read no speculative articles about what might happen or what is likely to happen, I read of no remedies for current political or social problems. In fact, I read very little about what is going on in the world. I mainly scan articles, very rarely reading one. Any local new that might affect me I read a little more attentively. The result of this disassociation with current events? Peace of mind and a lovely day spent as I choose to spend it with no disquieting or upsetting thoughts. It's wonderful. As I tell my friends, What need do I have to be abreast of current affairs? I already know who I am going to vote for for the remainder of my life. Anyone but a Republican. This is my only political activity, though I do send money to various conservation organizations and I am a member of the ACLU and a professional literary society. Life is good.
2
You are glad that you missed a claim on social media that Everytown's claim "that the massacre had been the 18th school shooting of the year... wasn’t true," but your link is to someone who admits that by Everytown's definition it was true (once one of the 18 was retracted by Everytown). The link accuses Everytown of no providing "nuance" (i.e., their definition) with their posts on tw and fb. You and I might disagree about the definition, but the advantage of print is that you can provide more nuance than simply asserting that the claim "wasn't true." The implication that gun safety advocates circulate claims they know are false, equivalent to what opponents of gun regulation do, is not, dare we say, fair and balanced.
A great reminder for us all. A very nicely laid out case for print. Here! Here!
2
Here! Here! = Hear! Hear!
2
Big fan of the NYT digital edition. It's the only paid site I subscribe to.
Plusses:
It's cheaper, by my calcs I'm paying about what I used to pay for the print edition in the late 1980's.
No more ink on my hands after reading.
As others have mentioned, no more newspapers piling up for recycling.
I'm in my late 60's, it's simply just easier to read.
One downside:
No matter how thoroughly I think I read the on line version, any time someone Emails me a link to an article they think I'd like, it always seems to be an article I somehow missed myself.
2
I live in an area that does not have home delivery of the NY TImes. In fact, there is only ONE store that carries the Times on a daily basis, and we buy that on Sunday. Otherwise, it's digital of the Times and Washington Post because the local paper is awful. Just one or two "stories" and the rest is high school sports, etc. I watch very little "news" on TV. And I am very careful about the sources. I realize that in my lifetime, paper will be entirely replaced by digital forms. I just hope that my 86 year old mother can still get her daily NYT until she is no longer with us.
2
Besides the NYT, the WSJ and my local paper I also follow a few European newspapers online. It is important to read what journalists are reporting from a non-American perspective. Also no one in my family watches television news unless there is a extraordinary event being broadcast that merits watching in real time. There is no need to watch the news if you have already read an in-depth article composed in print. The great benefit of reading the news, as opposed to listening to the news, is that you are not influenced by the tone of the newsreader's voice, the expression on the newsreaders face, or hype that tries to "sell" the story.
2
Farhad, welcome to the 20th century.
I don't mean to imply that print journalism is backward. On the contrary: Back in the day, we had ample opportunities to learn about a major news story (often from many angles) in both print and broadcast journalism. Then, it was off to the Op-Ed page to read commentary and analysis, providing a fuller picture of what happened.
Good journalism meant digging deeper past the first headlines to find the real story. That's impossible to do in this day and age of Facebook and Twitter, where news bites (real and fake) are served up like Chicken McNuggets.
If you want to know why our country has become so polarized over politics, is because news literacy has largely disappeared. We would be better served as a nation if more people thought twice before opening their mouths after a provocative Twitter post and instead did a little research on their own to find out what really happened.
Sure, newspapers have made mistakes from time to time (see "Dewey Defeats Truman" from 1948), but by and large, they are NOT sources of fake news.
1
At the risk of flogging Bezo's, I get the kindle edition of the NYT, electronically delivered to my kindle e-reader. Same paper (almost), once a day, in a format that is easy to scan for stories and headlines I am interested in, at a fraction of the print price. I am thinking of expanding to the WSJ, after reading this article. I still get the Washington Post sunday edition, and so get my digital daily paper from that. Plus, I have vastly reduced my recycle problem.
1
As one who often laments the apparent lost art of reading among today's youth and social media addicts, and along with it ignorance of history, research, and actual facts, I was loving this column until I reached one overlooked fact i blame absent and/or pretentious editors for failing to point out - the difference in cost between digital and print subscriptions along with the aggravation of home delivery. I can't believe i am the only digital subscriber who chose digital due to the cost difference; thus your premise that readers prefer digital is based on a falsehood.
3
Spot on. Life is a constant balancing act. Unfortunately we are left on our own to figure out basic life skills. Many fall prey to seeing criticism as critical thinking. The take away line for me is 'so called news before the facts'. Filter and question the source. I personally avoid pundits and all of the talking heads. It is all to easy to get wrapped up in the froth and ferment of 24/7 information.
A journalist's job is to get it right and tell it straight. Sounds easy but is not. It often takes time, as in proofing, re-writes, edits, final drafts and then printing. All that is gone now. Frankly, I think our world would be better without 'social media'. I know, I'm an information Luddite. And I do not care.
2
Reading the print paper is my preferred choice--it seems more orderly and measured--but the Times makes that choice harder. Just to name one way:
I love to comment on articles, as I am doing now. Many a time, however, I find that if I wait until I get the print edition, the comment section is already closed!
By the way, since Friday of last week until today, many print subscribers after the storm in the tristate area, have been forced to conduct your experiment: no cable service. I confess, however, this afternoon when service was restored, I turned to cable. HOWEVER, cable is an additional and not an alternative source, for things papers do not provide. I now have news overload!
1
We don't do social media, and we have gone the occasional month without reading the Times online and just reading the daily paper (although for us it is $80 a month and not $81). There is a serenity that sets in when the urge to continually update a story disappears. The advantage of being able to comment on a story and read others' comments is the best advantage of using online news. But in an era of a narcissistic President, relying on the printed Times reminds us that we don't need to know every breaking detail, and that getting "up to the minute" news provides more boost to the ego than any practical advantage. I've also noticed a difference in headlines and story titles. Printed editions are more descriptive and less fanciful.
Finally, we have a lot of wall-to-wall mirrors, and pages of the Times leave no streaks on the glass.
1
Thank you for this article,it has change my way to see the news from now on.
2
It kills me that my hometown paper, the Washington Post, can't be got in print here in California, so along with the Times, I took the LA Times, a local paper and the WSJ. But with fewer print subscribers none of these companies seemed to care very much about customer service. And though I vastly prefer print -- for all the reasons Manjoo found it awkward to deal with physically -- after wrangling with episodic delivery, companies that thought getting a morning paper to you at 10 a.m. was just fine, etc., I've succumbed to online subscriptions. So now I get my beloved Post along with the others, and my monthly costs are much less. But I am less informed. It is so much harder to graze a digital site than a physical paper -- at least for someone not a digital native. That's probably why I also hate reading on a screen. For some reason, I seem to retain less. Still, I know that print sources aren't coming back and service isn't going to get better, so I'll make due. BTW, back when I rode the Metro, I was very deft at folding the Post to read while riding in from Shady Grove. Another lost art!
2
One important advantage of a newspaper that is not mentioned in this article is that when one looks at a newspaper page, one sees multiple articles at once. The information isn't presented as an isolated piece, but part of a quilt of articles on different, and sometimes related, topics. A reader can be intrigued by a topic that they hadn't thought of before, and can broaden their knowledge, and possibly their point of view. When a reader gets news in a stream, the focus narrows. That narrowing supports division and separation.
2
Even though they still sell newspapers at airports,I could never imagine millennials buying one. They just wait for landing to get their WiFi back on. With all due respect to the writer, future technologies will continue to provide more new ways to receive our news. Let's face it, there is no point of return to the world of print.
1
The difference between what is on the NYT's digital front page and what is in their print edition is mind-numbing.
2
I agree with Farhad Manjoo's analysis of the effect trying to follow the 24 hour news cycle with additions from Twitter and Facebook has on ordinary US citizens. Since the 2016 election I too have limited my news reading to The Economist, the NYT, the Washington Post, the BBC and a local paper from the city near the major story. I don't watch network news; I limit TV watching to channels without commercials; although I admit medical offices locally have chosen HGTV to stream with captions in waiting rooms. For a while the Golf Channel was safe from political ads, but no longer. Twitter and Facebook are eliminated as sources of news. I cannot tolerate the voices of most radio hosts so I admit to never listening to them. NPR and PBS have had difficulty attracting knowledgeable panelists so I have found them less useful as news or analysis resources.
I do worry that I miss out on the viewpoints from "the other side", so I try to find some of the extreme sites to check into regularly; fortunately these sites don't change their language much from one month to the next, just their targets.
As Mr. Manjoo points out, the main benefit to getting news once or twice a day from a print source is the elimination of the artificial "Breaking News" syndrome. By the time I read about an event, generally the facts are known, the hysteria is less and those quoted make as much sense as they ever will.
The "news" does not overwhelm my day. I urge this methodology on more people.
2
Right on!! With a similar motivation, I've been doing my own version of this since January: I read the Kansas City Star print version every morning, and I read the print edition of The Week for a regular distillation of what has turned out to be important. I use internet news when I want to research something specific that I want to call my members of Congress about. I am consciously trying to cut down on reading news for entertainment purposes, and to use it instead to truly be informed, and then to do something as a citizen with that information (calling MoCs, attending rallies and protests, etc.) I've seen some of the same benefits this writer has--I'm calmer, my mental space is less cluttered, and I have more time overall for other things. (Not that I don't backslide sometimes...I found this article here on good ol' Facebook.)
2
We've gone back to the morning newspaper, less tv news and less internet herding. After only a few days, my teen adored the tactile feel. She made time to percolate articles of her choice. I grew up reading the morning and afternoon papers. By age 10, my allowance went towards a newsweekly subscription. A journalist for 4 decades (print, broadcast, cable and internet), I know the profession and the variant mediums. Social media is a meringue of marketing and propaganda. It is closed caption talk radio. When teaching graduating journalism majors, my syllabus required students read a daily paper. NONE grew up with newspapers. Most expressed surprise at what they'd been missing. Several changed their departmental focus from pr and broadcasting to print, even though it meant delaying their diploma by at least a semester. One enthusiastically applied for and earned a magazine internship. This was just prior to the internet 2000s. None knew what email was. I instructed them on the existing digital medium and required they get a university email account. Nearly all thought it quite pointless and of no use in their pursuit of a job in cable news. I warned them there'd be another medium to navigate within their lifetime, if not more than one. These 22-year-olds were consumers, not yet journalists; their response was not one of awe but of being overwhelmed. They are now in their 40s and some have college aged kids of their own. I'd love to know how many still read the morning paper.
9
While it's true digital news is more immediate and actually may include some inaccuracies, the major news outlets will provide updates and corrections on a regular basis and will say so. The real difficulty here is deciding which outlets are defined by ideology or conspiracy theories and which are defined by factual news.
I think being judicious about the use of social media for learning the news is a really good piece of advice. Often it is unfiltered and actually untrue or maliciously untrue. Social media has to be taken with a very large grain of salt, simply because, as others have mentioned, it is usually unverified unless it includes a direct link to a major news outlet. The rest is speculation and should not be trusted.
8
I've subscribed to the print edition of The Times for decades, and what I appreciate most is the hierarchical presentation of the news/content by those "hundreds of experienced professionals" doing that hard work. An interesting comparison, for me, between the print edition and reading The Times on my laptop (when weather between Seattle and Portland prevents delivery) is that I read probably 85% of what's in the paper, but only about 15-20% on my laptop. I chalk that up to that hierarchical presentation, but also to the design professionals who work in print.
6
I agree with this completely. The presentation of news online gives just about every article equal weight and presentation. While that may seem like a good thing (you choose what's important vs. the news curator) I think it has hurt our sense of proportion. Especially when we get news via social media, the news headlines are now interspersed with your friend's vacation photos and news of a former classmate's death. It's all the same presentation, yet each item couldn't be more different. When everything is "news," nothing is. Design and delivery matter.
4
I used to love reading papers. From 10-12 I even had a paper route. When I was really young it was most for the comics, but I have been reading at least part of news papers pretty much my whole life. When I was a teen, I mostly switched to the online format. My Dad still gets a physical paper. My family usually makes a trip across country at least once a year for a week or so to visit and we stay with him and his wife. I find I do like the visual layout of the a physical new paper more (though the same layout doesn't really work online as well, as people have figured out) and there is just something that feel right (maybe nostalgic) about reading a physical paper in the morning at the breakfast table while drinking some coffee. But at the same time it is just so much more cumbersome to read then on a tablet or phone. It takes up so much more space, you may have to wait your turn to read the section you want, and the ink dries out my hands. Physical newspapers will always hold a special place in my heart, but there is a reason practically no one under 40 gets their news that way.
1
As someone who is almost 60, and watched the entirety of the unfolding evolution of "new tech" that is supposed to "change your life", I have come the conclusion that the emperor has no clothes on.
It's laughable. People today actually think they can't live without their cell phones! As if all communication technology was somehow invented in the last 10 years, and everything before that was two cans tied together with a long string. That goes for almost every bit of new tech people think they can't live without.
We would be better off and happier without it by and large, socially, politically and economically. I am very happy being a Neoluddite and a recidivist. I know categorically that printed books are the closest we have ever come to immortality, whereas the Internet only lasts until the power goes off. And after the power goes off, good luck trying to get it back!
15
I read books for a living, presenting comprehensive synopses of (primarily) books on business issues, and issues of social justice. Though I read books these days on my Kindle app, I read every word of the books I present. Slowly. With focus, in serious blocks of time.
And, I have returned to watching at least the first 2/3 of a nightly national news cast.
This article is great! Because, it reminds us, that we need some level of focus in our intellectual diet.
So, now, I need to read my Dallas Morning News, delivered daily to my house for 31 years, much, much more carefully. And I need to treat my NY Times digital subscription as though it arrives only once a day, with an in-depth focused look; like it was a physical newspaper.
Thank you Mr. Manjoo.
7
I received an instant pot for Christmas. I wasn't expecting this gift and, after unpacking it, I decided it looked like a complicated space ship.
Holding on to the user's manual, I went immediately to youtube and searched for how-to videos. I'm a person who reads the NYT each and every single day. I have a stack of non-fiction books next to my bed. And, I too, want to consume my news and my information in the easiest way possible and that is how I found myself on youtube.
I think that podcasts are the wave of the future for accurate, insightful, thought provoking news. It meets the "youtube" need I had for my instant pot while providing good, solid news. NYT's "The Daily" is a great example.
I agree with the author about limiting news in terms of sources/amount and our own access to social meda; however, I think we need to think of more modern ways to do this than (expensive, bad for environment) print.
1
Turning off social media is one thing, but just getting your news from the morning papers isn't turning back the clock to an earlier time. It's creating a situation that hasn't existed for over a century. When people got their news primarily though newspapers they didn't rely on just one morning newspaper per day. Some papers published morning editions, some published evening editions and some issued both. And when there was breaking news they would often issue special editions. When I was growing up in Connecticut during the 50's and 60's we had The Hartford Courant delivered in the morning and my father brought home The New London Day in the evening. Other homes took The New Haven Register or The Middletown Press in the afternoon. When I moved to Boston The Boston Globe published both a morning and an evening edition. That news would be supplemented by the radio and television. So, although news might not have arrived as instantaneously as it does now it could still arrive fairly quickly and be updated with some frequency. The big difference was that instead of getting unfiltered and perhaps malicious gossip and speculation the news was curated. Even if it might have been slanted you knew who was giving it to you and where it was coming from.
14
Add to this that when reading a print paper you’ll be less inclined to multitask and get distracted by other apps and notifications. I would argue that even ergonomics and your body posture (remember those old photos of your grandfather looking so handsome reading the paper?) might just boost your mood and dignity.
7
The problem with reading a physical paper is that you have to live in an area where it is reliably delivered. I much prefer a newspaper to reading on-line. But living in Westchester, I found that my paper was not arriving until after 8 am. By then, I no longer had time to read it. I switched to digital and added the Washington Post, which has a much better app for reading on an iPad. Now, I mostly read the Post and wish I still had a physical paper.
7
And don't forget National Public Radio -- it's my morning companion, and with me when I make dinner every night. The interviewers invite a variety of guests and invite their points of view in good faith.
7
I've been saying this for years. It's just one aspect of all the negative effects of social media. The internet itself, as originally envisioned (remember the "information superhighway?") had much to recommend it. Along came social media to drag it down and reinforce everything shallow and weak about human nature. The very idea of relying on it as a source of reliable information about the world is preposterous and, as we see, dangerous. Go ahead all you like with analyses and opinions, but first just get the story itself with a reliable level of accuracy.
44
Resurrecting my print subscription to the Times because I am driven mad by pop-up ads. They are relentless. Will keep digital for mobility but nothing compares to the satisfying and calming experience of reading a paper paper as I start the day.
45
ABP and Ghostery are your friend. Ditto, the DuckDuckGo search engine.
1
AdBlock, Claire. It's free and it will make your internet experience great again.
1
It doesn't have to be that expensive. I have a subscription to the Times on my Nook ebook reader, which also gives me access to the digital version. Also, you can use Facebook to keep up with your friends without using their "news feed." I never look at it.
2
As I look over the comments, I am fascinated that the take-away for many people is that the writer thinks paper is nicer than digital. It's not about how you choose to get the NYT, or any other publication. It's about getting away from the insane, opinionated, and often inaccurate feed of breaking news on social media, cable news, and online alerts. Choosing to get news from daily, weekly, or monthly publications, whether on paper or digital, gives one a more balanced and accurate perspective from people who have had the time to digest the information and separate fact from fiction.
627
Thank you! I'm shaking my head over all the justifications for non-print consumption - faster, more convenient, cheaper. They are missing the whole point!
1
Maybe the NY Times and other publications will make the day's news an option on their digital offerings? As far as I'm aware the NYT daily view is only a web app.
1
I think that would be the wrong takeaway, and the writer explicitly says what you have.
I used to get my news from carefully filtered settings of my googlenews page. Then I moved on to just the NYT and NewYorker...never cared about twitter or any social media. My husband is a total introverted smart empathetic engineer whose profile is not on any social media, not even active on Gplus...He has been doing this same experiment, getting news from the NYT print only..reads The New Yorker and Nature...that's it. NO alerts at all. Me neither. He doesn't care much about Manjoo's anti-google bent but this he can relate with I believe.
7
Nice try. But my money is on printed newspapers going the way of the buggy whip. It's not just quality of news but the economics involved. And I'm a former print fournalist.
2
One who, seemingly, failed 3rd grade.
1
But you'd still prefer to get it from actual journalists, right? Or why else are you reading the Times?
2
That understandable. You've been stung, and your feelings got hurt.
But really, that doesn't make your prediction any more accurate than anything else one reads online. Less so, actually.
1
The beauty and the beast of print journalism is the editorial function: the decision on what to include in this issue. That is both the result of bias and wisdom---pick your poison. You know instantly what the editor of a newspaper believes is the most important story of the day. It is in the upper right corner of page one. You read the NY Times or the Washington Times, rarely both.
The web suffers greatly for not having this function.
3
Watching Trump is like watching a soap opera or a NASCAR race. Hoping the bad guy doesn't leave the ER alive or afraid to leave the room for a beer in case there's a crash on number 3. There has to be a name for this. We can't stop watching! So, whether it's print or digital, subscribe to your local paper and at least one of the biggies. Now, more than ever, we have to keep track of this!
3
Well, common sense would dictate the you don't get the news from Twitter and Facebook. Yeah, I know "common sense isn't that common". Been reading the Times since 1967 (mostly in print) but those days are over, can't give up the convenience of online Times.
3
You made me laugh out loud...I said, "common sense" to myself, even before I read your words...too funny....thanks.
I’m 36 and grew up with delivery of The Philadelphia Inquirer and The New York Times. (Thanks Dad!) I both loathe and am heartbroken by the digitization of news. Two comments I’d like to add.
Print media offers digestible units of information. One gets the satisfaction of accomplishing something by reading print. Online, it’s just an endless abyss of information where this feeling of accomplishment is as out of reach as the end of a feed.
Secondly, I don’t want my news “tailored” to my “preferences”, or whatever that means. My preference is that I want to be exposed to stories I never knew existed. It broadens your horizons. I’m puzzled as to why supposedly smart people actually thought this was a good idea.
19
There was a young man got the blues
From constantly hearing the news.
He turned off his apps
And now has large gaps
Of time to read books and reviews
165
Pretty good. Scans, too.
slow food trend, slow news trend. Both worth it.
19
Important piece. I'm an online news junkie with a growing sense of dread (shared by millions). Getting news online is, as Mr. Manjoo points out, a significantly different experience from reading it in print. The former predigests everything through commentary and links, reducing your need to think, to analyze, to digest. The latter encourages you to pause, reflect, absorb. Its impact stays with you instead of vanishing with a click. Who can forget reading those big black letters that said, "Ford to City: Drop Dead?"
6
I couldn't agree more.
3
Last night I came across a few newspaper pages I collected back in 2010. It was like travelling back in time. Of course I could click in the nytimes website and find much of the same info, but there was something special about finding different tidbits of information aggregated in one page. I still don't know exactly why I chose specific sections. It doesn't really matter. It triggered some happy memories:
Garrison Keilor on "renouncing evil powers" Jan 14, International Herald Tribune.
A letter to the editor: "Moscow and Beijing have a vested interest in NATO remaining tied down in the vast, inhospitable and intractable regions of the Middle East..." (ibid)
David Leonhardt, "big plans, but no one is in charge" on Medicare lacking leadership under Obama. (ibid)
"Bernanke persists in denying interest rates' role in bubble". page 8 WSJ
For online news, it's easier to turn the pages.
For those wishing to read about world affairs suitably distilled, I strongly recommend the annual IISS "Strategic Survey".
I'm the same age as you, Mr. Manjoo, and after dropping out of college twenty years ago I subscribed to the Times (print). Despite the endless online news options, many of them very good (Slate, Vox, 538), there is no question I was much better informed and efficient news consumer two decades ago. At most one in a hundred online news consumers has the discipline to consistently choose a broad, diversified selection of articles that leave them informed about domestic and international issues. Instead, you can just look at the "Trending" or "Top 10" article lists on the NYT site and see that gossip and sensationalism attract the eyeballs.
There's no going back, unfortunately, but it's no different than the diet analogy used herein. If you're constantly given a platter with donuts and broccoli, more often than not you're going to opt for the donuts.
4
Some other commenter has probably already made this point, but I find the Comments available as part of the digital version of the Times as interesting, and occasionally far more interesting, than the articles themselves, an advantage that the hard copy version simply can’t match.
43
Forget Twitter and news feeds. You simply don’t need to know what everyone else is thinking every minute of the day. Never had, never missed. Limit news to a few times per day: morning, noon, evening works for me. Focus on your own life and location. Don’t obsess. You can neither understand or do anything about most of what passes for news, especially overseas. Getting sucked into every cause and issue is damaging. You will fry your circuits. Do what you can. Give what you want. Then live your life as well as possible for yourself and loved ones. “Plus ça change, plus c’est le même chose.”
6
You are not kidding. Social Media pales in comparison to a free press that is responsible to tell us about the issues occurring in our neighborhood, and the world, objectively. Honesty in reporting, especially in-depth articles to not only inform but contribute to understanding, is what matters. And Social Media is in another league altogether, sub par at best.
4
Wonderful. At almost 70 - and this is meant to sound shocking but I mean it - I think the two most destructive inventions of the last 100 years are the atomic bomb and wireless technology. Yes, each has engendered positives - healing techniques and wide communication - but we would have found other/better ways to do that, I am sure, with less shattering consequences.
7
It's not shocking. As someone who is almost 60, and watched the entirety of the unfolding evolution of "new tech" that is supposed to "change your life", I have come the conclusion that the emperor has no clothes on.
It's laughable. People today actually think they can't live without their cell phones! As if all communication technology was somehow invented in the last 10 years, and everything before was two cans tied together with a long string. That goes for almost every bit of new tech people think they can't live without.
We would be better off and happier without it, by and large. I am very happy being a Neoluddite and a recidivist. I know categorically that books are the closest we have ever come to immortality, whereas the Internet only lasts until the power goes off. And after the power goes off, good luck trying to get it back!
3
I will be 60 years old soon and so I know what life is like without technology (we had a shared "party line" in the rural area of my childhood and tented the rotary phone), and I love technology. I do not miss outrageously expensive overseas telephone calls, snail mail and limited to no quick communications - I lived it all in my military career ((which meant months of isolation or very expensive phone calls to the states during several deployments)) before today's technology. I love instant communications, and so do most of my peers, aging relatives and my neighbors - most of whom are 10 or more years older than I am.
Yea for the smartphone.
Despite an allergy to printers’ ink, I gorge on printed newspapers, although most of them these days offer a low-cal version of the news. I’m in my 70s and I’m a journalism outlier because many of my contemporaries no longer subscribe to the local newspaper. Online news and social media have value, but they entice us not only to abandon print but to abandon conversation as well. The newspaper, when it did its job right, served as our conversational commons where the community, for part of the day at least, came together literally on the same page. It linked people who otherwise would not encounter on another, and it served as a vehicle that encouraged dialogue on matters of civic importance.
Of course, printed news has flaws and limitations. It is expensive to produce and disseminate, and it’s costly for subscribers. If you live outside home delivery zones, you get print edition by mail. That’s why I subscribe to the online edition of the NYT, and while I’d still prefer leafing through the print edition, I would miss the bright, witty and engaging commentary from NYT online readers that the print edition cannot possibly publish.
Thank you for enlightening my day.
8
I thoroughly enjoy the reader's comments too. I get a perspective from someone I've never met. It is valuable and often enlightening to read reactions from all over the world . So for me the NYT digital edition and my local print copy of the Philadelphia Inquirer provide a fine balance of news to start my day.
4
This brings up an issue that I’ve been personally wrestling with lately - namely what are the real benefits of social networks - and is it time to disconnect and tell Zuck what he can do with his social network. There are admittedly benefits, thinking of the Arab Spring, but there are also enormous downsides to the echo chamber / manipulation by Russian operatives that we are all subjected to when using social media. I also find it difficult to reconcile that Facebook and Twitter knew that Russia was gaming the system in the 2016 election, and they did nothing other than cash the checks. I’m thinking it’s time to pull the plug.
15
I've never plugged the social media plug IN, so I don't have to pull it OUT.
1
Thank you Farhad Manjoo. So true, and so important.
I noticed that my iphone kept sending me news and email and twitter updates, though I never signed up for such interruptions. It took me months to realize, that if I searched, I could find the boxes in settings to turn off all these horrid little interruptions. Now, I'm trying to get up the nerve to unsubscribe from 30 important organizations that abuse my inbox. I just wrote to MoveOn.org, you must stop the daily emails, and weekly is not acceptable. You can ask for money no more than twice a year. I will accept a monthly summary of issues, petitions and candidates to support. I doubt they will honor my request, and I will be litterally, Moving On.
x
David Lindsay Jr. is the author of "The Tay Son Rebellion, Historical Fiction of Eighteenth-century Vietnam," and blogs at TheTaySonRebellion.com and InconvenientNewsWorldwide.wordpress.com
5
Great article. I like the Get News, Not too Quickly, and Avoid Social. Turn off notifications for sure.
But I would add Do not watch certain TV news programs. You know which they are.
We have cut the cord, saving hours of wasted time. I get my news from my laptop when and where I want it. And I read our local daily paper.
2
While the reduction in consuming (news also) is always a good suggestion, in a society who equates excess with love, the good advice swiftly turns into an American version of "Gleichschaltung", when the suggested reading is nyt and the Wall Street journal - which may reflect this advertising author's sense of balance but over here in Chicago elicits a grunt of contempt, as if he had said Pravda AND Russia Today!
How about papers from two different countries? Or at least two different cities?! How about a non-neoliberal, large corporate supported, news source?!
One thoughtful line, does not a full article advertisement justify!
A dinosaur speaks: I have happily ignored Facebook, Twitter, and all that junk from its inception. Reliable news on commercial TV stations died with Cronkite's departure, so I have never watched it. On the computer I turned off the email alert immediately; I check email when it's convenient, including for work. I get my news from respectable newspapers, NPR, and occasionally PBS--period. I don't own a smartphone, despite the dismay of many friends; too bad. Works well for me.
4
This is so well-done, and it had elegantly and urgently persuaded me to do much as Mr. Manjoo did and pay $81 a month for a NYT print subscription....But then I wondered, did this article not run exclusively online?
2
Well--I just read this piece. Online. Sorry. Some thoughts do occur:
I worry about newspapers. Really. I swear (on a stack of Bibles), I am NOT on Facebook and I never read ANYTHING on Twitter. Unless, of course, it's quoted somewhere. "Somewhere" being--The New York Times.
BUT. .. .
. . .one of the marvelous things about reading online is. . ..
. . .the ability to go jumping, leapfrogging as it were--into OTHER articles that are not necessarily New York Times articles at all. A columnist (for instance) might refer to some long piece in The Atlantic. H-m-m-m-m. . .
. .. so I go sailing over to The Atlantic. I read the piece. Boy, was it long! And interesting! VERY interesting. . .
. . .then I go sailing back to The New York Times. And finish that original column. Often I write a letter (which may or may not get printed--like this one) thanking the columnist for her insights and information.
Or--you can flick on a brief video. Of our President say (!), delivering himself of some thoughtful opinions and profound insights.
Or--a piece of music.
Or--a piece of science. Made intelligible to dolts like me who know little about physics. Or biology. Or chemistry.
And yet, Mr. Manjoo. . .
. .you DO make some excellent points. Thank you And by the way. . .
. .I STILL worry about newspapers. If ALL our information comes from Twitter and Facebook--and Fox News. . .
. .. GOD HELP US!
15
Great article. I subscribed to the Sunday NYT print edition several years ago and appreciate getting a more in depth coverage. I hadn't considered your approach but now I will - mostly because the mistakes, crazy comments and other distractions of live media are an energy drain and curiously addicting.
2
Whether reading a newpaper online or on paper at the breakfast table, I find that I notice interesting tidbits and "less than headline" news much more than if I am just clicking headlines to read. I get a broad view of what is going on in the world and my community and also, because it is there is front of me, I read commentary that I might have not known about or ignored, thinking it didn't apply to me or it was "on the wrong side" of things. The fragmentation of news sources is not good for our depth of knowledge if you only choose what grabs your attention immediately or which confirms what you already believe. As an older person, I remember when we had 3 national news stations and one PBS station and so the whole country was seeing similar news, so all of us had some common information, even if we didn't agree what it all meant. l was glad to see more viewpoints arise as time goes by, but boy, it is disconcerting how many people know so little because they only choose what they agree with already.
14
When I subscribed to the paper version of the Times, which I prefer, it became too expensive, so I switched to digital.
My experience reading the "paper" was better because I stumbled upon articles that I would not have seen had I been reading digital articles one at a time. I miss the spread!.. I feel like I am missing a lot of good articles because of the way they are presented in the app that I use. Sometimes I become fatigued, because I don't know what I'm looking for...yet in the paper version I always found it. Very often I'd be drawn in by a photograph or quirky headline, and find myself reading something that expanded my knowledge of the world. I feel that reading the digital version is often overwhelming and not as enjoyable. Oh well.
16
I would like to subscribe to both the print and online versions of the NYT, but living in a ski town means missing papers most of the winter months from November often through April (papers can get buried in the yard for months, eaten by the snowblower or snowplow, and are often delivered late or not at all because the mountain pass from the nearest city is closed or too dangerous to drive until late in the day). I subscribe to our local papers and read their online versions when delivery isn't available. I completely agree with not getting news from Twitter or Facebook - I have stopped going on Facebook more than once or twice a year due to the oversharing of floods of fake or alarmist news by well-meaning friends.
1
Thank you for a really good article. As a digital subscriber to the Times, I also see some other "real news" sources and avoid social media.
But I appreciate the way you don't just trash other ways of getting our news. The key thing is its reliability and the news "gatherers" are the ones to trust. That said, you are fair about using other sources as well but encouraging us to be smart and commonsensical about our choices and how we use our limited time.
It really is up to us to insist on getting more than opinion to feel informed!
8
can i just say that as a millennial, i immediately assumed (until more than halfway through the article) that "print" meant "text" as opposed to video/audio and not "printed on paper". i thought "well how nice of farhad to extol the virtues of reading the news online". i don't want to accuse anyone of being a luddite, but i will say there is a class element to this. most working-class folks do not have the luxury of a leisurely morning routine with enough time to consume a piece of physical media. so i'm glad to see farhad acknowledge that the "print" approach to news can be done digitally. it's more about the ritual than the precise means.
3
@Peter: You are showing your stereotype- (immediately assuming):
Yes- there are millions of hard-working middle-class folks who get our morning newspapers (delivered at our door step by 5 am). We glance at it while getting the kids off to school or aging parents dressed; our vehicles packed for the 12 hour day at the J-O-B; catch up in the break room with the newspapers spread out on the tables. Then after stopping at the grocers on the way home; picking up various progeny from an array of after-school activities or meds from the pharmacy- cook dinner; then curled up about 11:30 pm in our PJ's finish reading the newspaper we began at 5:35 am.
Since I'm at home today- I get to go online after reading my Papyrus and Ink.
I've noticed that I'm better informed now that I have stopped watching the news and rely heavily on credible sources such as the Times and my local paper. Granted I rely on the digital version but without the talking heads telling me what to think I'm able to process the information myself and form my own opinions. There's something soothing about reading the news and print newspapers are held to much higher standards than televised sources. As for social media, they're held to no standards and are just noise.
35
I have always consider "TV news" to be an oxymoron. Don't watch any of it. I read, print and digital. Having worked as a reporter, I appreciate the vetting, fact-checking and hard work of those tyrants known as editors.
1
While I do appreciate this, I think the environmental toll that one-time use newspapers and magazines take on our Earth cannot be ignored, especially as there is a less energy consuming way to ingest our news. Food for thought. I agree with the final section regarding social media. Just avoid it as a news source, even if it is a newspaper article, because if it's being shared on social media, there is an associated opinion to it that can preemptively skew our views on what we are reading. Great concept discussed in this article though.
15
But they're not one-time use. I reuse newspapers as cover underneath art projects, mulch in my garden, or, when I have no immediate need for them, I collect a whole bunch and donate them to local animal shelters which are always in need of newspapers. Likewise, I use the bags they come in to pick up my dog's poop or donate them to a friend with a dog-walking business.
4
Would be great to have up-to-date information about the environmental toll taken by the production and disposal of all our electronic toys, along with what it takes to create the electric or other sources of energy we use to power them. Our planet is generously littered with e-waste [electronic waste], a fact often obscured or conveniently forgotten on account of the cult of high tech and the distance of many of us from the sites where such waste is deposited. [Bonus question: Anyone out there happen to live near one of the nuclear power plants Google counts on?]
6
Hospitals of all kinds are in great need of Newspapers and Magazines. I donate mine to Children's Hospitals.
As for email, I rarely look at it anymore. This came about while doing live-in care for a 95 yo, who resented my attention not being 100% on her. I would read TWC every am while I was waking up. I did this sitting outside while I checked on our chicken and rabbit. She was on her HAM radio at this time.
Facebook is not a good source for news by any means. Neither is Twitter.
I now get my news from NYT, WaPo, & the LA Times; along with several Magazines. I get local news from broadcast news. I have found newspapers to be highly informative compared to cable news. I will occasionally watch CNN, but only to see pictures of recent weather events.
I enjoy the comments on articles very much. I learn quite a bit from them. After the 2016 election I was astounded by the intense hatred. Many papers are now moderated, or have a payor based comment section. I'm against this, because it seems to be an infraction on free speech, but it cut back on the vitriol. The LA Times uses this type of commenting.
I hope that more people abandon social networks and cable news as their primary sources of news. It's important to get all sides of issues, and newspapers do this best imo. Comments add to this much needed information.
I subscribed to the print edition of the Times for years, but went totally digital for one main reason (maybe, two... or three) -- getting the paper delivered to my home in San Francisco on a timely, consistent basis was sketchy at best. Some days it would never come... some days it would come too late for me to read it before heading off to work. When I complained, the delivery person left nasty notes in the paper. Who needs that? The quality of the delivery service definitely declined over time, at least to my home in SF. Also, it was expensive and paper-intensive. You can still lead the life Farhad espouses with digital-only sources (for me, NYT digital, plus other online sources.... LA Times online and the New Yorker; local news sources). Just say no to Facebook and Twitter.... it's simple.
64
Maybe your delivery problem is your neighborhood? I lived in the Castro and my paper was always there when I left for work; I switched to online only when I moved to rural Oregon. It's true, though, that the guilt over so much paper wastage is now gone.
4
I had delivery problems in Berkeley - not only SF Chronicle but my NYT. Same delivery person. I finally gave up and only read online. And yes, I don't have a stack of papers piling up anymore.
1
Same here. My subscription to the NYT came by mail. At first it arrived on the day of publication, but over the years that became problematic. Finally, when I would get a week's worth of papers on a single day, I switched to the digital edition. My husband still gets the WSJ in print by mail, and it arrives at the post office on the day of publication. I miss my print NYT, but not a week late.
1
When I was living overseas years ago, I got my news entirely from the Sunday New York Times and Newsweek, which came in the mail and thus were always at least a week late. I read online now because it's easier to adjust the print size (and I'm hooked, admittedly). I know I'm missing many good articles because I have a friend who reads the print section and sends me links to articles that don't surface online. Perhaps the algorithms that determine placement online are part of the problem?
7
Thank you for sharing your experiences and your thoughts with us. I begin each day with a cup of tea and 30 minutes of reading the NYT which is delivered to my house the old-fashioned way. It is a far calmer, satisfying, and thoughtful way of making oneself knowledgeable about the world than the relentless, chaotic, and headache-inducing digital media. We would be a far more intelligent people and would probably have fewer problems if the pace of life slowed down for all of us.
12
I read the NYT every morning, with coffee, curled up with my down blanket on my couch-- on my laptop. I read blogs as well, written by people I would never have heard of, who have done a great deal to expand my world and my knowledge of the world. I do not do FB or Twitter. I DO read the BBC News site regularly and listen to BBC podcasts on science, history and other topics. They are very well-produced and offer in-depth interviews and useful information.
I think it's the careful selection of sources rather than the actual medium that makes the difference.
2
I started reading the NYT when I was seven. When I was a diplomat in the Congo, my NYT arrived in batches, which I read chronologically. At age 84 I still get the print edition, as well as the digital edition. I also get daily digital news, including Politico, the Washington Post, and others. The NYT print edition provides a unique scope and reflective insights. The Economist, the Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, and the NY Review of Books also provide broad insights not available digitally. Still, if I were restricted to one news source, it would be the print edition of the NYT.
7
Love this. I put myself on a news diet at the beginning of the year - meaning, I do not watch "Breaking News" on CNN anymore. I glance at both NYT and WaPo headlines (online - hard copy papers are too expensive) as I wait to take my child to school, then watch Rachel Maddow at the gym, then come home and read the major stories in NYT and WaPo. Then I try mightily (though sometimes I fail, as with any diet) to avoid the news until I treat myself to an end of day wrap up with the outlet and media of my choice. My stress levels are way down, I've actually lost 12 lbs and I feel like a (slightly) saner human being.
7
"the prominence of commentary over news online and on cable news feels backward, and dangerously so. It is exactly our fealty to the crowd — to what other people are saying about the news, rather than the news itself — that makes us susceptible to misinformation."
Bingo! Most of us now get opinions of the news, typically from talking heads more interested in their own celebrity than in factual presentation.
83
Getting a daily print or even just getting the Sunday paper results in so much recycling I end up frustrated. I have a bad enough time with my weekly and monthly magazines. It’s better to find things to do (go for a walk, clean, do your taxes) or make (time for a hobby anyone?) if you want to slowdown the consumption of digital news and opinion.
1
To paraphrase Kilgore in Apocalypse Now, "I love the feel of paper in the morning".
I also miss the thrill of reading a hand written snail mail letter.
E-mail and messages do not cut it.
10
I still send cards and letters. But I like old things and just bought a typewriter because being disconnected from the internet helps me with my writing.
2
This makes a lot of sense. I'd say I'm as guilt as anyone for letting newsfeeds leak into my Facebook account to the point of almost dominating the site. So, after reading this article, I went through my Facebook and stopped following all news related sites, and a few others. I returned my Facebook feed to what I started with in the first place - a place to look up friends and family members and share thoughts and photos. We don't have cable in our house, so that issue is mute. I do subscribe to the NYT and Washington Post online. I miss printed newspapers, however, the quantity of paper I had to throw away was too big to ignore. So, I read the "paper" in the mornings, and that's about it. Plus, after a year of nonstop news, gossip, speculation, and so forth about you-know-who I need to look around and see what else is going on in the world.
254
I really miss the ease of scanning a print paper, getting through headlines the full scope of a days news before deciding which stories to read fully, and in what order.
But when a whole household shares a print edition, frustrations can ensue. Thank you for letting us both share one digital subscription.
2
This is an important and timely article, thank you, Mr. Manjoo.
Echoing the suggestions in this piece, I would add Avoid TV News. The 24/7 stream of “news” is usually a rehashing or older stories told by a different talking head. Hence, it’s not worth our time.
As this newspaper and our security establishment has made abundantly clear, our nation was – and is still being – attacked by Russia and their propaganda apparatus. By avoiding social networks and TV news, we nullify the impact that fake news has on the viewer.
In WWII, we were told to grow victory gardens, a small but meaningful action that citizens could take to help out with the war effort. I’m not suggesting today’s struggle with fake news is akin to WWII, but I am suggesting that Americans need to do their part to prevent such propaganda attacks on our democracy from having an effect.
10
I will always subscribe to the print version of the NY Times b/c, if nothing else, when I want to read an article, it's still in the same place where it was when I put the newspaper down earlier in the day. It's still on page 18 or whatever - whereas the online version of the Times keeps moving stories around on the screen (giving them more or less prominence).
The online version of the Times also rotates stories so that the interesting headline I saw when I was in a rush isn't easily findable when I go back later. (And no, I don't save stories to read later online, b/c for me it just becomes a buildup of "digital clutter.")
7
I wanted to share this piece with my father this morning, who prefers the print version. Couldn't find it in his newspaper.
If the newsprint version is too expensive, a frequent visit to your local library is relaxing, and you might even meet some interesting people.
And of course for purists the crossword must be done in pen on paper.
55
I heartily endorse the suggestion of reading The Times and other print newspapers at the library, if your library carries print versions of reputable newspapers and news magazines.
My library located in a middle-class to quite affluent suburban area in northern Los Angeles County does not carry any daily print newspapers. Which surprised me.
Your local library may subscribe to a magazine service such as RBdigital, or as it's sometimes called Zinio for Libraries. Through a different local library system, the L.A. County Library, I can read The Economist, The New Yorker, The Week, and other magazines online. (For those with less than ideal eyesight, use a desktop large display for reading the magazines online.)
1
The irony is killing me.
Thank you Farhad for this article!
One aspect of reading the news in hard copy that you failed to mention, is that it allows for much more discovery of articles that you might not chose to read online. When I read the Sunday Times in print, I will look through the travel section and book reviews and find interesting nuggets, whereas online, I might not even chose those sections unless a simple headline grabs me (the print versions have alluring images on their covers, designed to draw the reader in). With print, you have to turn the pages to find pieces you want to read, which briefly exposes you to an array of articles, some of which you might pause to read. The digital browsing experience is not quite the same, I think it leaves less chance for such discovery.
936
Thank you. Could not agree more. I once had a professor who extolled the virtue of actual "books" over our online diversions. "They offer you the chance at fortuitous learning" because you might just stumble on something, I recall him saying. That has always stuck with me, and you've kindly reminded me.
5
This is the same reason that I love bookstores and libraries despite the convenience of Amazon. Walking past the shelves, I inevitably am caught by something in a section that I would never have browsed online.
4
Exactly the way I feel. I stopped my local paper in Omaha because of the concerns about paper wastage (pages and pages of ads in addition to the news), but reading online the Omaha paper and the Times and the Post, I know I am missing bits, as you say so well.
2
Mr. Manjoo correctly identifies social media and cable news as the primary sources of hyped, outraged, shallow, and often just plain false reporting and commentary. While I don't subscribe to a print newspaper, I limit my online news to the Politico Playbook newsletter and the Times "Today's Paper" feature. (I wish this feature was available on the NYT iPhone app.) Most Saturdays, I forgo news altogether and opt for long form reporting and essays in the New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, and literary journals. Like the author, I have found myself better informed since cutting back the number of news sources in my life.
There is, however, one caveat to his prescription. Subscribing to several newspapers and periodicals may work well for those who read and write for a living. I do not have time to read a print paper--let alone three(!)--over a cup of coffee every day. I read the news on my phone in the checkout line at Kroger and at my desk during lunch. Since public transportation isn't an option for me, I can't even read a paper during my commute, although NPR is a fine substitute; Morning Edition and All Things Considered are indispensable.
Manjoo's analysis is undamaged by this caveat, however. Eliminate or drastically limit your intake of news, particularly political commentary, from social media and cable TV. Choose a newspaper, a magazine or two, and a public radio station. Become better informed.
5
Excellent! But what to do about it? My mantra for more than 40 years was: Attribution, corroboration, documentation, verification. Those are difficult, expensive, time-consuming and sometimes dangerous. Professional journalists do those things better, faster and cheaper than anybody. For decades I tried to tell my masters in the newspaper business that Americans would not realize what journalists really are worth until it's too late. Your analysis gives me hope it may not be too late yet.
15
Same for us.
We’re over 100 miles from NYC so we get NYTimes online (and are happy to pay for it). News Podcasts are ONLY those that are delivered by REAL journalists (they check sources and if they make a mistake, they report and correct it). We get New Yorker and The Atlantic delivered (unfortunately don’t always have time to read them both).
We don’t watch ANY cable news channels and listen to NPR radio. We consider ourselves pretty well informed.
7
I might add that when reading an actual paper I tend to read the whole thing. Including editorials (well at least partly) that I vehemently disagree with. When reading on line I pick and chose what articles I read which tend to be ones I agree with or find the topics are ones I'm more familiar with, hence, easier to understand. The two local papers get read front to back the NYT's gets read piece meal.
7
I do no social media! i rely on print issues of the NYT, WSJ and Daily News. I also use their digital websites as I sometimes like to comment on various topics. On occasion I watch the BBC and very infrequently CNN. I don't think I lack a worldview at all.
1
Nice, if you have the option. They stopped delivering print newspapers to my rural neighborhood a year ago.
197
Yep: nice if you have the option. I must read large type these days, and on my huge Apple screen can enlarge a newspaper column to fill the whole from left to right.
4
Replying to Karen since I now live "near" you (not rural, though). When I lived in NYC many years ago, and then later in New England, a favorite Sunday ritual was to obtain the Sunday NYT and install myself in a booth in some greasy spoon diner. At one point, I subscribed, but then started reading online instead.
Seeing this article makes me think I should go back to that. A local coffee place (as well as Starbucks) carries the Times.
I much prefer the experience of physically reading the paper. I don't mind the ink stained hands; it's part of the ritual. One thing the author said does resonate with me, having now arrived at middle age. The print is too small!
yes i am probably the only person to my knowledge who wants the nytimes delivered in my area and it is a 25 minute drive from nearest town so how can they make any money delivering it to me
if they have no other print customers in the area so i settle for digital you do miss the ads different things you wouldnt pick up on digital price of technology i guess
2
I have so far resisted owning a smart phone. Nearly everything I read these days tells me I made the right decision. (Which is indeed a rarity in my life.)
The powers that be in my middle school in 1965 thought it a good policy to buy each 8th grade student a Chicago Sun Times newspaper every day. The result for me was a lifelong daily newspaper habit. Most workdays I had only 1/2 hour lunch to read the paper, but I did my best and could devour a Chicago Tribune first section easily in that time, including all the editorials.
Those days are over. In my youth, Chicago had 4 burgeoning daily newspapers; the two we have left are shadows of their former selves. However, I very early on adopted the NY Times and the Washington Post as my papers of record, and now that I have retired I have all day to read them (plus innumerable other sources) online every day. Does that count?
I'm lucky someone handed me a morning paper every day I was in 8th grade and I filled many a long boring hour of school reading it surreptitiously. Would that the practice was revived and students taught how to digest news and opinion in ink and paper.
8
I, for one, have always known this. I have not needed to give up 'social' as I refused to join it in the first place -- resisted the first mad rushes to sign up, and have remained a refusnik ever after. Nor do I have a television. Though, I haste to add, I am an enthusiastic subscriber to Netflix, both streaming and on dvd. My computers get plenty of stuff to do . . . .
2
I am 82. Once the Phoenix area had three newspapers, the Arizona Republic, the Phoenix Gazette, and the Mesa Tribune. All are gone now with the Republic morphed into a companion sheet to USA Today which I don't consider to be a newspaper. I now subscribe to the NY Times delivered 7 days a week and also read several magazines such as the Economist and the New Yorker. I am saddened to know that young readers are now merely observers via the internet rather than readers of the news. An additional benefit to the printed news: it is NOT delivered in the breathless, nearly hysterical tones of the popular networks (sandwiched between endless commercials) nor in the rock 'em sock 'em style of the internet. As one reads, one has time to reflect and consider.
799
@ Mary Melcher You are so right about the endless commercials on the network news programs. I believe it is those commercials which finally made me stop watching the "evening" news programs from the networks. I disliked the subjects of the commercials as much as their making the tragic news stories seem trivial when sandwiched between ads for medicines for ED and Incontinence.
1
But you do not need a paper source to be a thoughtful consumer of the news. My wife and I subscribe to e-versions of the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal, plus a paper copy of our local paper, the Washington Post. I get only thoughtful, grownup alerts on my workstation throughout the day. The key is to be selective.
1
Hello! I am around 70 years younger than you are, I haven't experienced a life without such devices calling for our attention. So when you had talked about the ability to reflect and contemplate on what we had read, and comparing how we could do it in paper or on the internet. I must say I never thought about the difference.
Then I start reflecting on my own actions. I realize that when I finish one article I jump to the next headline, a cycle that keeps on going for hours on end.
Especially when I'm doing it on a source that isn't as informative as the NYtimes. It's extraordinarily unfufilling, not being able to digest the writers art really causes the writing to lose it's value. And most of the time it's just a false headline to grab my attention, I'm starting to realise how much time I'm wasting.
It's honestly appalling when I reflect on what I do every day, because I realise in a bit I will lose that time. I no longer will be able to have hours on end after to school to waste and I realise I must use it to its highest potential.
Thank you so much, could u recommend me things that I could do in my free time?
7
I do basically the same thing, only digital. I receive three daily newsfeeds, from the New York Times, the Guardian and Reuters. I read through the articles of interest each morning, as well as other articles I might be drawn to. Then I go to the digital version of my local newspaper. And then I'm done for the day. No breaking news alerts. And absolutely no television news, of any sort, ever. Seems to work just fine.
3
I don't don't watch TV news, and I don't read the newspaper when on vacation. I have long thought that not paying attention to the news is one of the reasons vacation is relaxing.
2
I do not think there is a large difference between digital and printed newspaper.
What is relevant is my believe that we must get news from "papers" that have credibility. No "breaking news" is in such journalism. My life does not change an iota if I know the latest school shooting within an hour or a day.
I have tried and given up on (in sequence): TV, Facebook, Twitter. I can't stand these sources.
My news source since many years are: NYT, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NPR. I think this gives me a balanced view left/right and the truth. Each outlet has different emphasis on the stories and highlights different aspects in the same story.
3
Mr. Manjoo is almost 40 and I am almost 70 so his newer younger insights are very interesting to me. At my age, almost all of my life has been dominated and filled with piles of newspapers. I read the same papers now on my laptop. Sometimes for old times sake I go to the library for print news. I can't see much difference between the two media. The WaPo and NYT and LA Times are the same in print as on the screen, but the screen is cheaper and neater. Then FaceBook entered my life and I got to keep up with long lost friends and distant cousins. That was nice. Then suddenly during the last election I had an experience a lot like being hit by an unexpected wave while walking on the beach. We all went suddenly crazy. I had to get busy fact checking and blocking and finally I just gave up and left. An old memory resurfaced. Somewhere during the first Gulf War my husband uttered an explicative and turned off the TV. I had long since left the room. This was caused by CNN's constant "breaking news", complete with emotional music and soaring logos and endless advertising. I knew I had seen this behavior somewhere before. I hope people take Farad Mango's cautionary tale to heart. Let's not be suckers for hard sells that prey on people's emotions. Slow down. Read the big papers that take the time to get it right.
204
This brought the memories flooding back. One morning, most of my second year Calculus class in college arrived unprepared, having skipped the assignment because the US had gone to war in the Gulf. The professor called it "CNN Syndrome" and reminded an arrogant and defiant class that learning Calculus was far more important than our recently acquired trivia about Patriot Missiles and SCUD Missiles. Though I was one of the few who actually did the assignment, I would relearn this repeatedly as I disconnected from network television news after 9/11 and left social media in 2014.
It's all advertising. It is meant to get you to buy remedies for the anxiety that they can generate.
2
The first word that pops into my mind when I read Mary Bardmess' comment is: Triumph.
1
AHMEN! Sane words. When I watch today's news am constantly reminded of Neil Postman's brilliant critique of today's journalism in his book "Amusing Ourselves to Death." The title says it all. Very much worth reading.
2
This rapid fire environment where we get pounded with 24/7 news is very stressful. The news is so "negative" that I've actually cancelled my subscriptions to the NYT and WP... (a few more days until the subscription dies). I've also cut back on some of my FB groups... I'm down to one for Fat Tire Bikes.... In a few months when my doctor asks me about my stress factors, I want to say, "deciding on mt biking, road riding, hiking, kayaking or doing nothing...."
2
My folks were of humble means. Yet we were able to have the LA times delivered to our house in Colonia.
My mom made me read to her while she made supper in the afternoon.
I read her articles of news and sports. Jim Murray was her favorite.
When my dad got home, he read the sports and front page.
My dad is 95 and still gets the paper, my self and my three sisters all
are teachers or professors. I tend to think that having a paper to read
had something to do with our success
8
I'm too far from NYC to get the Times so I sunscribe to digital, but I do get my local Bangor Daily News. Life is much calmer without the insanity of social media, unfortunately I'm addicted but have learned to limit to 30 minutes twice per day.
2
Being first with the news is not necessarily being the most accurate. But these days, I think news organization’s biggest problem is being labeled ‘Fake News.” How that will be challenged might be job one.
2
For similar reasons, I haven’t watched news or talk on TV in years. By the next day, a print journalist (NYT, WaPo and WSJ are my go to sources) will have sorted out a good deal of the noise.
5
I do not use Twitter; I do not use Facebook/Instagram (other than to stalk my kid's pictures). News in the morning is the local delivered paper for breakfast, the NY Times on my Kindle (which is similar to the print version) for lunch and then the Nightly News around dinner. Getting most anything else from any other source (other than a feed of an actual live "happening", which Fox News happens to be good at) is all opinion and a waste of time.
Your assessment is correct, but unfortunately actual print papers ARE being replaced by reading on Kindle/tablet, but as long as you read the overnight newspaper and not the live gibberish being generated by all the un-news outlets, America can survive this change. If people just watch MSNBC/FOX to get their "news" (like someone we all know doees), well, you are already seeing what can happen. It is sad. We must transform and remain intelligent.
2
As one who never signed onto any of the social networks, doesn't own a cellphone or a car, and limits his time online, I find the nearly born-again aspect of our former technocrats-- and yes, they are all much younger than I am -- both mildly amusing and tediously similar when it comes to their observations.
We are being bombarded with confessionals from former Goggle, Facebook, et al. alum that conclude -- gosh! -- maybe it is possible to have one's mind hijacked. (Many have made their big bucks and have moved on to other employment; most importantly, many now have children.) Great! (better to be slow than entirely stupid). Now maybe you can move on to other coercive aspects of technology that we generally enthusiastically embrace -- cars, cell phones, the sinkhole of endless apps, omniscient surveillance and abuse of our personal data, etc.
Orwell's 1984 was one picture of our future, and it competed with Huxley's Brave New World. In Huxley's world, "they" don't have to force us to consume Soma, we will beg them to give it to us. No (overt) violence needed; just the slow drip, drip of having our minds hijacked. I don't know that reading my news in print, rather than digitally, will solve much of anything, but I guess for some (e.g., our intrepid reporter) it's at least a start.
2
Mr. Manjoo didn't mention another benefit of local papers--they're local, meaning that they discuss what's happening wherever one lives: stories about pumpkin festivals and controversies about a high school teacher invested in conspiracy theories and which areas of town have potholed streets. Mr. Manjoo also didn't mention a consequence of getting news from local papers--dependence upon how one owner and one editor view the world. People in small towns must choose from exactly one local paper. A water main break might fill the front page the day after a frightening international incident or the day after a government agency decides to abandon civil rights protections.
5
You make wonderful points, but do you really think you're going to reach and convert your target audience with a newspaper editorial? Good grief, Charlie Brown!
2
Share on social media!
I read the Guardian, the NYT and the Washington Post online morning and evening. I can neither afford the print versions delivered nor do I wish to use up all those trees. But I wish Twitter was not used as a source by these papers. I want real news reporting, not a cobbling together of cheap 140 (or 280) character blurbs from the e-ther.
7
Yep, go to agree with the point made. I spend my first hour of the day reading NYT, and Washington Post. Locally LA Times has devolved so I avoid it. But, unless there has been some earth shaking event, I will focus my attention on things that matter to me in my life and my work until the next morning when I review the above mentioned sources.
Got to confess though, I read digitally because it is more environmentally friendly.
4
Particularly as an introvert, I have remained a committed consumer of Asocial Media, and welcome Mr. Manjoo to this calmer, more realistic world.
"Applause waits on success." Benjamin Franklin
"Popular opinion is the greatest lie in the world." Thomas Carlyle
4
Mazel.
Yes, time away from this box on my desk and the phone and tvs, with their breathless the-end-is-near narration of all things trump, is essential. BTW luxuriate in your print newspaper; a bagel with a schmear and coffee helps. I am a 7 day print subscriber. Just flipping the pages allows me learn about all sorts of things. Whether in the front which is international news or the daily sections highlighting different facets of life or the obits. Say, did you read about Gershwins son who just died? A great read but one probably not found by those who do only digital.
Trump is a disaster and an ignoramus but too much news about him and our dysfunctional govt is toxic.
3
I only read news from sources I trust and for me that has always been the New York Times. I much prefer the online version because not only don't my fingers get blackened but my mind gets informed on a more timely basis than a print version which can only report yesterdays "news".
1
I prefer the Times as well for the same reason: I "trust" its contents, meaning I agree that they accurately describe reality. For the same reason, I distrust and disagree with the contents of Fox News.
4
"Just about every problem we battle in understanding the news today — and every one we will battle tomorrow — is exacerbated by plugging into the social-media herd. The built-in incentives on Twitter and Facebook reward speed over depth, hot takes over facts and seasoned propagandists over well-meaning analyzers of news."
Will we ever find a better explanation of the catastrophe called 'Trump'?
2
As a journalism major in college (late 1990’s) I received four papers at home every day. Today, I receive only the Sunday NY Times, which I enjoy at a leisurely pace throughout the week.
Like many Times readers, I deeply value the print editions of newspapers, magazines, and journals. But to support print editions, we must do more than buy them at the airport once or twice a year.
Print may no longer generate the ad revenue of digital, but print subscriptions are a way to show publishers our love for this endangered medium.
Great article & reminder.
5
Try to imagine what the Drudge Report would look like if it were in print.
Farhad, I wonder if you can share how the news -- or its presentation -- differed from one print publication to another.
1
In addition to not being on social media, I don’t watch cable or tv news. I only get it from my NY Times subscription. Makes a big difference.
1
The takeaway: Facts first, commentary second. Should be applied to "broadcast" media, too. Insightful article I was going to post on Facebook. But after reading it? What to do.....
3
A terrific article, but what if I’d not had a chance to read it until, say, March 10th?
I've never followed twitter, but I still check Facebook for news of friends. But more and more Facebook is cluttered with really really dumb stuff and political garbage all being shared. I've thought about going back to just the print version of the Times and a local newspaper but the price keeps me away.
4
"Avoid social" is key. Getting news from Facebook is sooooo 2013 anyway. I mean, who uses Facebook other than grumpy oldsters pretending to be happier and younger? Why get news from fakers and trolls?
4
I haven't been able to find this article in today's print edition.
2
"All the news that's fit to print" is a powerful slogan, it defines this paper. Even before there was digital, sensational stories would usually appear in the junk papers before the Times. It takes time to verify the facts. I wish The Times would play this up in their branding message. The stakes are so high.
2
I am posting a link to this piece on Facebook.
4
I am not much for social media, but I am still part of the problem: I get all my news online, despite being aware of the paucity of the offering, as compared to print. I just can't pass up the convenience of being able to access news in a variety of settings, without lugging a newspaper around. I found I just flat out didn't read the news when I didn't have an online subscription.
Nevertheless, I think this article should be required reading. There is no question in my mind that print news is richer and (somewhat) less sensationalist than online news, in addition to the benefit of cutting down on the distraction of informatio overload.
4
I was directed to this article because the NYT posted it on my Facebook and it came up in my news feed.
Thanks for this. I don't feel as much like a dinosaur as social media advocates would like to make me feel. I read the Times (and other publications) online because it's easier, cheaper and less wasteful of resources. I do not participate in any form of social media. Hell, I don't even own a cell phone. But I'm a dying breed, and recognize that to get news consumers to turn to publications produced by skilled news professionals for their information, we need a strong public school system that teaches the value of a free press in our society. I'll be over here in the corner holding my breath waiting for that to happen.
6
I must say that I agree with this whole-heartedly, not only on the subject of becoming more informed but on the use of time. I'm way younger than you I'm still in school, middle school to be specific.
The classes that I have are really easy so I can escape school with only 1 or 2 B's even when all I do when i go home is cycle through social media.
Being productive is extremely hard with so many distractions.
I stay fit, I regularly try to pursuit more knowledge and become not only more informed about the world around me, but also to study the past.
Yet, even with me trying to be become smarter and seek knowledge I find myself being so utterly unproductive and doing nothing with my time, time that I realize I will lose when I get older.
Your article gives me insight on the time before what I've experienced with information. I loved the article and all your writing in general.
Thank You!
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Matthew - your self-awareness blows me away! Predictable verbiage for a 69-year-old retired attorney who was as bored with school as you are. I stuck with education to get credentials that were rare for women in the 1960s, started with medicine and switched to law. To have choices.
I've worked with innovators in medicine when only two people were talking about maybe being able to "do it," from BOTOX for painful torticollis to lab tests that examine a woman's breast cancer tumor to determine whether she likely will or will not benefit from chemo. Also, wrote plain-English legislation that never needed to be examined in any Court to get done what Congress intended be done, including a law that protected the earliest HIV/AIDS patients from being jailed for bringing unapproved drugs from overseas for what the new law called "personal use only."
I now use that 1983 law I wrote to bring from my London physician a drug not approved by the FDA for U.S. sales (but widely used worldwide) for severe painful osteoarthritis (Arcoxia). This year I will join two prominent physicians to get this drug approved in this country . . .and get patients with arthritis off opiates and onto more targeted effective therapy. All three of us are volunteers--not paid by anyone. We choose to do this.
Best prep for learning to listen and evaluate what you hear and see is reading plays, like A Sleep of Prisoners . . .and Lysistrata. For me, old flip phone + zero social media keeps me balanced.
2
I get a lot of news on line but almost all from the NYT website. Read some articles at 11 PM on line but also get home delivery for where I read most of the arts and sports and much news and puzzles.
Read all the columnists Sat evening.
Doubt I'll ever stop home delivery but i see why many can't afford. Also get Star Ledger at home until it fades away.
3
I am a 7 days a week home delivery subscriber of the NY Times, for almost 27 years. It gives me digital access automatically. I use both. Digital is faster and easier during the (work) week. On the weekend it's paper, with coffee, sometimes for hours. I like the balance. I avoid social media - all of it. If it's free, you're the product. I don't wish to be the product.
27
Yes! I refuse to be the product. Exactly.
2
An interesting exercise, but beside the point. The toothpaste is out of the tube. There is no going back. Marshall McLuhan had it right back in 1964 when he predicted what the internet would do three decades before it hit us. Re-reading his book, "Understanding Media:The Extensions of Man" in the light of the last 25 years confirms and illuminates what is happening. He predicts everything from the futile wringing of hands about the passing of print news -- and I say that as a former newspaper reporter -- to the rise of cultural, social and political "tribalism," not to mention Trump, that's got everyone mystified. I won't say that re-reading McLuhan is comforting. It's not. Things are probably more out-of-control than you thought. But it is reassuring to have available a proven theoretical framework for understanding what's happening to us. Google it. Order it online. It's still in print. You might even be able to get it on Kindle or Nook, or as an e-book.
6
Thank you for this piece. I'm 38, and had the good fortune to be raised in a family that took and read the local paper each day, and the NYT on Sunday. I believe that seeing my parents read and discuss the print paper, and taking the baby steps towards reading it myself (starting with the funnies, moving to the crossword, scaling up to the local section and eventually attempting the front page) essentially taught me to be an engaged citizen. Now I have a 9 year old and I have to admit that I do not receive a print newspaper. Your piece will certainly make me reconsider that decision.
One thing I would like to mention is that social media/online news has sometimes helped push for better coverage of issues that may not have been on the agenda of mainstream media. For years, the New York Times relegated its climate coverage to "dot earth," and bizarrely self aggrandizing columns of Andrew Revkin. The failure of mainstream journalism and print journalism to cover this emerging crisis sooner and better was a failing. I continue to get most of my journalism on this topic from non-print sources such as Resilience.org, Grist, or through a "Climate Action" facebook group (that draws from multiple sources. Coverage in the Times as improved as the situation becomes more and more serious and irreversible, but I can't help but to imagine how things would have gone differently if the Times and others had covered this story better from the start.
5
This is something I've thought about a lot over the past year. Like many others, I'm not able to only get news from print (it's way out of my price range!), but I have found a system that works for me:
1. I set up a news feed (I use feedly.com, but there are other services) that prioritizes long-form journalism and that includes perspectives I disagree with
2. I set up leechblock (again, there are alternatives for those who don't use firefox) to block me from accessing my news feed after 15 minutes. I can read any of the articles I've opened after that time, but can't continue accessing the feed
3. I've stopped getting news from social media. I quit twitter and tumblr, limit my reddit use to non-news subforums, and have used leechblock to limit my access to facebook.
I really believe that my mental health has improved as a result of these changes. I feel less anxious and less angry, and feel that I have a better understanding of current events.
I have subscribed to the NYT digital edition, but otherwise the changes listed above are all free. I like the author's suggestion of print media, but don't feel like you have to spend money to slow down.
7
I'm a print reader, and have been for years. I discontinued our local paper when purchased by a conglomerate in Texas (several states and time zones away from me), when they supplanted our local news with wire services articles. I had that subscription while raising our children so I could keep abreast of school and community events.
I now take the Sunday NYTimes, and have a digital subscription, too, as well as a daily LATimes (closest quality newspaper to me). I, too, find I take in the news more thoroughly, and as another comment noted, serendipitously.
When I taught college, we discussed the news cycle: online is okay for breaking news, but for analysis and a thorough vetting of the facts, you need to wait a day for print newspaper, or a week for a news magazine.
I loved this article, and wish my children would take the time to read a print newspaper daily.
76
I cut my cable years ago after broadband was available. The coiffed and sprayed talking heads reading the news, whether it's local or national, when I watch them now leave me nearly nauseous. The violent disruptions of narrative to hawk products; the fake suspense; and the sense of celebrity cultivated by tv ratings seems like corporate bullying designed to separate viewers from any context that may contradict the sales pitch. Social media news is free of context, as well. However, if I have time I can find stories that give me context surrounding the clickbait. I subscribe to digital editions of three newspapers. I turn off all notifications on my phone. I read books, both digital and analog. Digital is easier for the instant dictionary and ability to highlight and save passages. Lots of people don't have time or inclination to look for context. Without context it's just propaganda, no matter the source.
19
I used to get my local paper delivered. It'd show up on my porch before I got out of bed. I'd read the major news over breakfast and take the other sections to read on the bus on my way to work. I preferred the depth of the information in the articles to the snippets that I got from other media. I did this, right up to the day when my local paper stopped their delivery service.
50
Why can't you buy the paper on the way to work?
If her commute is anything like mine--walking and public transportation--there is nowhere to buy the paper until a block or so before my office. My husband's fairly short drive to his office also offers no direct opportunities to pick up a paper. True, he wouldn't have to go too far out of his way, but it is out of the way, and then there would still be no time to read it.
1
Everything said here comparing digital and print daily news sources applies equally to comparing daily print newspapers with weekly or monthly magazines or even to history books. As anyone realizes after knowing the actual facts of a situation reported in newspapers, daily or instantaneous reports - whether in print or digital are full of mistakes. In the mainstream media, that typically is unintentional, but sometimes due to carelessness or incompetence. The bottom line is that the quality of news reporting and analyses typically improves over time and readers should analyze what they read with that truth in mind.
32
Most television news, especially the 24/7 "news" channels, have the same problem as social media, although they do have some benefits of curated reporting. In most newspapers, reading two pages of ordinary type out loud will take you longer than half an hour. Multiply that by the number of pages in any section and you get some notion how much gets left out of TV news and social media.
18
The analogy in a different area is the curation offered by museums and to some extent by their docents. One can visit art galleries or vast numbers original sources, but curators choose, sometimes offer opinions, docents give a focused guided tour as they know a lot more than I do. I still can make my own interpretation but it’s more a fulfilling experience and more efficient than if I had to listen to scores of people giving me their opinion of the moment on the art.
7
Great article.
Years ago I was stationed on a submarine. Our only way of hearing about the outside world was through short messages. One day, when we were out at sea, our daily news digest included a line that said something like: "Allied forces captured Saddam Hussein."
That was basically it. My commanding officer said, "Isn't that great? If we were at home, it would be wall to wall coverage on CNN all about the basic fact that he was captured."
Though being at sea on a submarine was hard, I had to agree with him on that point.
99
As a former reporter/editor, I am grateful for this commentary and for the work you have done on this experiment. You have proven what I have suspected. My conclusions based on years of informal research on social media have been borne out in the results of your experiment.
It is such a shame print news is so expensive; we have had to cobble together a semblance of print news with digital subscriptions and donations to real journalism organizations like Pro Publica and The Intercept.
Thank you so much; your insights are invaluable and everyone needs to heed them.
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I loved receiving the Sunday NYTimes print edition. However, as has been mentioned, the amount of excess paper created determined my decision to go digital. I even enjoyed reading the ads. (But I read them when I wanted to read them, not when the digital world deems it necessary- right in the middle of an article.) One of my favorite memories of print news is of my father reading the Sunday newspaper after church, and us kids using the comics section to play with silly putty.
5
I have similar memories, and now that I think about it, my Dad's regular reading of the local, regional and Philadelphia papers probably played into my decision tk become a reporter. Creating a digital collection of newspapers is definitely possible, without the news being curated, filtered or opined upon. Thank you for sharing your memories!
2
Print news had the same impact on me. I recall Dad at the breakfast table each day with a newspaper, which in turn gave me an opportunity at an early age — in part because we had no TV in our household — for valuable discussion about what was going on in the world. First I took interest in comics, then in "Dear Abby" and eventually in the paper as a whole.
1
We get 2 papers delivered daily. My kids look through the sports and Metro sections over breakfast. It’s a pacing benefit in a busy life and I look forward to the daily delivery that gives me space and time to consider my own opinions.
58
I would love to get my local newspaper delivered to the driveway, early in the morning, picked up while the coffee is perking--but I can't afford it any more. Even better, would be getting my local paper and a national paper, but I can only afford the national papers online.
65
I would love to get a local paper. However, my town, which is populated by a large number of well educated people, has none. It has only a newsy website with fairly bad reporting.
3
With national papers available online, the papers need to move to a different online purchasing model. I've lived in California for 40 years now but prefer the NYTimes global/national coverage. Living in the San Francisco area, there is enough money to support the Chronicle so I choose to support my old hometown paper in Erie PA, a city that has seen better times, even though I rarely get time to read it. I gave up print many years ago for my own sanity both because of the paper waste and time spent getting rid of it. The papers I like to read DC Post, Chicago Trib, San Jose Mercury News, Sacramento Bee, LA Times have monthly caps, usually 8-10, which I often exceed. I would pay $25 a month for a payment model that include a primary newspaper and 25 30 articles per month from 2 others (or maybe just add $5 for each non-primary paper). After all, most of us can only read so much and have other things to do with our days.
3
Aside from all thaqt you say, there are these advantages: old papers to start the fire going esach morning; old papers to put under the litter box and the food bowls for the cat; material for grandkids working with paper-mache; good drainage for a fish fry or two; cushioning in packages mailed to various folk; very portable and disposable drip cloth for minor touch ups when painting.
My former parents-in-law used the comics for holiday wrapping.
150
My dad, who worked for the Chicago Sun-Times (a tabloid), used to say of the Chicago Tribune (a broadsheet), "It's a good paper if you're housebreaking a puppy."
2
Newspapers have one more advantage, at least if they arrive protected by a plastic bag that one can wriggle one's hand into, and if one takes a small dog for potty breaks. I prefer newspapers that use colored plastic bags that disguise the bags' second set of contents.
5
I still do that with the funny pages, some spay paint and glitter.
2
Wonderful! The expense of print newspapers can be offset by reading at your local library. But I still like news online, but never from social media. I was even off of social media for eight years.
33
I quit Facebook. I thought I would miss it and feel left out. Surprisingly, I don't miss it at all. I discovered it creates its own need. Life is now much more calm. Try it!
397
I deactivated my Facebook account a little over a week ago and have been pleasantly surprised by not missing it at all. I expected cigarette smoking level withdrawal symptoms, but no, feel a sense of freedom from not having to constantly check it. Basically Facebook has run it’s course. It used to be fun but now it’s not.
3
I quit Facebook about seven years ago. Surprisingly, I still have a social life and probably have closer, deeper relationships with the people in my life than I did when I experienced those relationships through a screen. When I meet new people, they are often perplexed that they cannot find me on social media. I joke that they'll have to get to know me the old fashioned way!
Over the weekend, I reactivated my old Facebook page for about half an hour and creeped on old high school and college classmates. Within thirty minutes, I felt such a sense of inadequacy with my own life as I compared my life to the portrayals of my Facebook friends. I cannot fathom how people live this way constantly, and how I did it for so long.
Not only is the constant stream of information and misinformation problematic in its own way, but the constant comparison to the lives of others has to be detrimental in its own pernicious way.
4
Absolutely true. I've been away from Facebook and WhatsApp for around two years now, and the free time I suddenly started to get allowed me to learn and do many more things I had in my mind. And I'm just twenty three.
3
Reading digital and print versions of the "news" are very different experiences.
In digital news find that the comments of readers are often more interesting and informative than the opinion of the original piece writer. The 24/7 digital news cycle is time consuming and distracts readers from their own life stories that we each author every day.
The other aspect of reading a print edition of a newspaper that does not get enough attention is the sheer "serendipity" of turning pages and having a headline or picture grab your eye. You read stories on topics that you never even knew about and absorb information that makes you a more broadly informed and knowledgeable person.
305
"Serendipity"...that's why I read The New Yorker cover-to-cover.
1
"You read stories on topics that you never even knew about..."
You just hit on a major reason why we must never let the ban counters kill print. It has been proven that digital is just one more area that encourages us to retreat to the safety and comfort of our own tribal corners. We seek out what we want to read rather than consuming a story that "caught our eye."
Another interesting story on digital. Studies have indicated that our eyes start off following a story across the screen from left to right. In less than 11 seconds our eyes start to go straight down. We have started skimming and are no longer reading.
This is dangerous. It helps explain why every uninformed person on the planet suddenly thinks their opinion is a valid as an expert who has spent years studying the subject.
5
"You read stories on topics that you never even knew about and absorb information that makes you a more broadly informed and knowledgeable person."
I find that I discover topics that I know little about or perhaps know nothing about probably more from digital sources than from print. When something piques my interest, it's easy to either follow a link or do a search immediately whereas with a print source I need to make a mental note to follow up--which seldom happens. The experience of discovering new things in print is different than online, but both have, IMO, their benefits and are valuable.
3
I read your article on my ipad. Nicely back lit- an easy read.
I still love a paper Newspaper, but now go both ways with ease.
Thanks for your terrific and long overdue article.
112