Goin’ through them changes

By Joe Moore

ssAfter 26 years, I’ve canceled my daily subscription to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. The main reason was delivery issues which I won’t go into here. Suffice it to say, at some point the aggravation factor exceeds the patience factor.

I really enjoy sitting at my kitchen counter each morning sipping my mug of freshly brewed Dunkin Donuts coffee while I peruse the paper. It’s a morning ritual decades old.

So what do I do now? How do I get the local news beyond just watching the network affiliates? Solution: For $5 every four weeks, I subscribe to the digital edition of the paper. It only took a few minutes to realize this is a very cool alternative. Each day, I click on an email link that takes me to a perfect, pristine, crystal clear copy of the paper. This is not a website but the actual newspaper in digital format. It’s searchable. I can zoom in on all photos and ads. I can jump to different sections. I have access to back issues. Everything is there that’s in the printed version and is visually the same.

No more hoping the delivery guy throws the paper in my yard and not my neighbor’s. No more worrying if it will land in a puddle and be a water-soaked log by the time I get it. No more need to put the old newspapers out at curbside for recycle every Thursday. No more chopping down trees.

I have moved from the kitchen counter to my desktop monitor to read the paper and drink my DD. It’s fast, convenient, and fun. I only wish I’d made the switch long ago.

And it’s just another sign of the changing times in print media versus digital format.

How about you? Do you still read an analog version of the paper? Or do you use your phone, tablet or PC instead? Or have you abandoned the local newspaper altogether?

14 thoughts on “Goin’ through them changes

  1. I only buy a physical newspaper when my father comes to visit. I’ve read all my news online for at least four years now. The ability to follow links and use searches while learning about a story is too convenient, and I’m not killing a bunch of trees. It’s a no brainer.

  2. I’m with you, Dana. The cool thing about this method is that it’s not a website. It’s a digital version of the complete paper. So I still feel like I’ve got the paper in front of me, but there’s no ink smudges on my fingers.

  3. Really. I buy the DD whole beans and gride them fresh each morning. And yes, the puzzles are there. It’s an exact digital copy of the paper–articles, ads, everything. The big advantage over news websites is that, at those sites, I tend to miss stuff because most stories are grouped as links. You must “go to” the story. With a digital newspaper, you read it as if it were physically in front of you. I may be late to this parade, but I find it a huge advantage over the printed version.

  4. A digital version of the paper. Interesting. Though I have never been a newspaper reader, that might be more tempting.

    The Arizona Republic has a website, which is okay, but like all websites, has a very “busy” look which is not enticing to me. I wonder if they have a digital version of the paper. I’ll have to check.

    BK Jackson
    http://www.bkjackson.blogspot.com

  5. I just checked my local paper. They only let you subscribe to digital if you live outside their delivery area. I could lie about where I live, but it doesnt look like they give you a break on price anyway. $21.80 for 4 wks whether you’re digital or not. What a rip! Damned Hearst.

  6. Good idea, Joe.

    We still subscribe to the Kansas City Star, but only because my 86year young mother-in-law lives with us and reads it from front to back with her coffee each morning.

    I’ll check into a digital edition for me, and maybe there I’ll find a copy with unsolved puzzles and no rectangular holes where coupons used to be.

  7. I just checked, and we do have a digital edition. $7.95 monthly vs $28 for the print edition.

    But my print subscription includes the digital edition, and since I’m stuck with Mom – er, the subscription, I’ll try that.

    Thanks for the idea, Joe.

  8. We gave up our daily subscription to the newspaper when it became a pain to have to stop it for four days for long weekends away and then to restart it again, or else have it lying around our yard for people to see that we were gone. I still like to get the Sunday paper for the coupons and to cut out articles of interest for my writing files. We buy it at the drugstore. Maybe when we get an iPad, we’ll subscribe to the digital version.

  9. I tried to sign up for the digital New York Times, but the payment system was so screwed up I canceled it in frustration.

    We still get 4 days of the LA Times delivered. We were going to cancel it, but then my 93-year-old father in law moved in with us, and he enjoys the morning paper ritual with his breakfast. I’m thinking of going back to the 7-day subscription, just for him.

    Otherwise, we’d be completely digital by now.

  10. I miss the L.A. Times when it was a truly great local paper. I loved the morning read, but now can’t believe how long I spent on the paper. It seems so 1980s. Now I scan Google News and a hub or two and get on with the day. I still miss Jim Murray.

    I’ve heard others tout DD and just can’t get into it, fresh beans or no. It tastes a little too much like candy. My current fave is Peet’s Major Dickason blend. Now that is the way to start a writing day.

  11. I should have been your delivery person. I did paper routes for fifteen years while my chilluns were growing up. Every paper in a bag and on the porch, every day. No exceptions. Well, no exceptions until I switched to my last route, eighty miles, 300+ papers, and all tubes (those plastic doohickies on the mailbox posts).

    But I do still buy newspapers (I don’t subscribe, because the service is so bad *insert ironic emoticon here*). Any time my day includes errands in town, I buy a paper, but it’s only to sit with a cup of coffee, watch the people go by, and do a crossword puzzle.

    Crossword puzzles and coffeeshops may go digital, but people-watching requires a presence in meatspace.

  12. Thanks to everyone for your comments and feedback. And Jim, I won’t hold it agaist you that you’ve yet to discovery “America runs on Dunkin”.

  13. I abandoned the newspaper about 7 years ago, Joe. Didn’t like the feel of the paper (the waste of resource) and the ink on my fingers. (I know . . . such a girl!) Then there was the pile of papers for recycling. Just messy!

    I also had a problem with content. The negative really gets to me. Don’t watch the news so much anymore either.

    However, I like this digital newspaper idea. You get to read what you want and don’t feel like you’re wasting anything. I’ll check into it.

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