Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Switchboard >

Do you read newspapers?

Page: (1)2

Doctor Sax

08:36 / 18.09.01

Working in the newspaper industry, I'm interested in whether people of the age group on Barbelith actually go out and buy newspapers - national, regional, local.

Do you get your information from other sources (TV, radio, internet)?

Are newspapers considered a source of good writing?

Any thoughts?

08:36 / 18.09.01

I was born in '65, maybe not in 'the age' group, but for reportage I go for Australia's Radio National at certain times of the day in conjuction with the local broadsheet Sydney Morning Herald. For opinion/ comment, I still routinely read some Herald columnists and listen to public radio forums, but I've tended to come lately to this creative, opinionated, friendly, bitchy place, finding information links and posters worth reading (keep that auto-pilot disengeged) for opinion.

Ganesh

10:37 / 18.09.01

Yeah, I read The Guardian - the UK's wishy-washy, woolly liberal paper-of-choice - pretty much every day. And sometimes Edinburgh's local rag too.

10:40 / 18.09.01

born in '77

Whilst at college I bought the express because it had calvin & Hobbes as its cartoon strip and i wanted to read something that I violently disagreed with. From Uni onwards I have bought the Guardian on a Monday (jobs) and Saturday (the guide +jobs) and violently disagree with tv, radio and internet current affairs.

10:44 / 18.09.01

Yeah, I read the Guardian. I quite like it. I enjoy the ritual of reading a paper and I use the net to get information in a different way.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

11:00 / 18.09.01

I used to read the Independent every day but not any more. These days my current news sources tend to be telly based. There's no real reason why I don't buy a paper it's just that I feel it's stupid to buy a paper if I don't read it all, I don't feel I have time to read it all AND do everything else that I want to so the news on telly is more convenient.

Doctor Sax

11:10 / 18.09.01

What about local papers? In these days of much geographical migration between cities and even countries,do you care about parish pump news? Is it relevant to your life to understand how your local authority spends cash, or how the local police force acts, or how education policy is made?

Or do you think local newspapers are a hangover from an earlier generation?

11:12 / 18.09.01

Ditto , I'm a '78 kid and I get my news off the net or sky news.
The only time I read newspapers are sunday's or if I'm at my parents house.
I don't have much room and papers tend to get everywhere after a while.

Ganesh

11:14 / 18.09.01

Edinburgh's 'Evening News' comes in two daily editions and actually provides pretty good, up-to-the-minute reportage on world events, as well as the usual 'dogshit on our streets' local rubbish. I think local papers are still relevant.

Doctor Sax

11:23 / 18.09.01

The Evening News is a particularly well thought of example of a regional daily.

11:34 / 18.09.01

Oh and I sometimes read the free newspaper the Metro on the train in the morning which is alright until the penny drops that it is mostly made up of press releases.
Shock exclusive - new washing powder to produce extra soft clothes - housewives of the country rejoice. Seriously.

11:34 / 18.09.01

I read the Independent... oh, and Metro. gotta have some kind of eye-contact shield for the London transport system. Don't necessarily believe anything I read but I read everything I can.

11:40 / 18.09.01

Born 1967, read the Boston Globe pretty much end-to-end every goddam day.

11:56 / 18.09.01

The Guardian on Saturdays and Mondays (for the media jobs, basically); the Observer on Sunday, or at a pinch the Independent on Sunday.

Private Eye every fortnight.

The Guardian online, sometimes supplemented by the BBC and links other people find.

BBC Radio news (no TV).

I find that, if I've bought a paper, I feel bad if I don't read most of it - the news, comment, review and culture sections, usually. Not bothered about the sport, business, travel or financial sections. I wish it were possible to customise one's paper, so that I wouldn't have to lug all those extra sections around; that's the benefit of the net.

12:12 / 18.09.01

i get the hackney gazette most weeks, when i buy a national it's nearly always the guardian. now i have a coffeetable i won't have to spread the thing out all over the floor and remove the cat from whichever article i'm trying to read.

born in '67, btw.

12:53 / 18.09.01

I read the metro because despite the incredibly poor quality its journalism it is free.

As I live in london, 'local' news is quite redundent and is covered in the national news.

I do find i have a resistence of paying for local news and will leaf through local papers that are paid for by advertising rather than those that have a cover price.

best free papers I have read EYE and Now from Toronto

13:17 / 18.09.01

Born in 1971, and loathe almost all newspapers with a passion.

The formulaic nature of the articles, using that accursed 'pyramid style' of writing, and the way that the headline tends to tell you all you need to know... urgh.

All this was crystallised by the Diana volte-face on the part of almost the whole of the UK media, where she went from tart to saint overnight.

And local papers ? 'Man found asleep in chair shock', 'Local councillor in "Where's my biro" fury' ? No thanks.

Find most papers to be so obviously showing their interests, and - as someone already pointed out - made up of obvious publicity and press releases, that I'd rather not read them at all.

I can usually get through any of them in about five minutes (except Private Eye, which I'll give more time to simply because it so often takes a refreshingly contrary stance - again, see the Diana issue).

Dang, there goes that reasonable chap persona I've been trying to cultivate. Better take my fictionsuit to be mended, it's fraying at the edges...

DBC

PS - Sax, no offence to you personally intended here. Honest.

Doctor Sax

14:15 / 18.09.01

Sax whacks "lax facts" attacks

Barbelith old fart Sax of one, half dozen of the other, 31, today blasted fellow poster DaveBCooper for alleged offensive remarks about the former Doctor’s trade.
DBC lambasted regional media with the put-down: "And local papers ? 'Man found asleep in chair shock', 'Local councillor in "Where's my biro" fury' ? No thanks."
Sax remarked today: "I’m gutted. How could he?"

14:38 / 18.09.01

Surely there should also be a couple of potentially extraneous, self-contained sentences at the end there, which may/may not have been trimmed off, depending on the space available or whatever ?

Stuff like
"A source close to DBC [ie chances are the journalist is making this up] said "[some bland phrase which neatly encapsulates the essence of the article and may also contain some speculation as to what might happen next]" and
"The Barbelith Underground is a popular board amongst internet posters. The internet is currently used by [reiterate some recent figures about internet use in the home etc, maybe some reference to .com fever, porn sites, etc]"

No personal offence meant, Sax, honest. In fact, your reply seems to suggest you're all too aware of the kind of thing I'm driving at - though if it was local news, it would probably be hidden on an inside page whilst the headline was something about bus shelter proposals or somesuch...

DBC

04:56 / 19.09.01

I buy a NY Times when I'm up at school. ABout four, five times a week.

Doctor Sax

05:18 / 19.09.01

DBC - Sadly, I'm all too aware of the at times hackneyed nature of news reporting, especially in the UK. Which is why I moved to features after 12 years in news.

Now I get to be hackneyed in 1,500 words instead of 500

18:04 / 20.09.01

Born in '77.

Read daily: Guardian, Welsh Mirror, Daily Post (North Wales regional), local paper.

Read less than daily but at least weekly: Sun, Star, Indpendent, weekly local paper.

Occasional Sundays if I get up before shopcloses: Observer.

In pubs: whatever's there.

Also: Private Eye, Index on Censorship, NME, Q (shudder, Uncut, Muzik, Mixmag, the Face, and (rarely 'cos its tone annoys me) GQ, New Scientist.

Used to read Loaded for its Gonzo style journalism, now don't bother as it's just another lad's mag.
Also read various online news sources and columnists.

I can't understand why anyone wouldn't want to read as much media as possible; surely, you should want to know what your 'friends' and your 'enemies' are saying. But hell, I'm just a dull bastard, I suppose...

18:24 / 20.09.01

Born in 73, and I will read pretty much any paper I can get my hands on. On a semi-daily basis I read The Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times, but I especially love it when I can get my hands on foreign papers (Le Monde, the Guardian, Canada's Globe & Mail), but I gotta tell ya, I've been going crazy this week - I've checked nearly every day at the newstands where we get the foreign papers, and I'm seeing very, very few editions past September 9.

I even wonder if there's a conspiracy.

Oh, and I gave up trusting most news sources after the Gulf War. You have to look EVERYWHERE to really figure out what's going on: the internet, the Wall Street Journal, Rush Limbaugh, the business section of "USA Today, " the quickly moving ticker at the bottom of the TV screen... and even then you probably won't know.

Carmilla Von Uberwald

18:18 / 21.09.01

Born in 75. Read The Guardian & Observer. Listen to R4 on way to work and watch channel 4 news in evening. i also always look at the tabloid front pages so i can tut at how terrible they are.

18:52 / 21.09.01

Born in '67.
Read the local newspaper here in Italy (La Stampa, which is garbage), used to read The Guardian when I was in the UK.
Newspapers are not that bad as long as you keep other sources of info open.

17:33 / 22.09.01

Born 1982. Read, at home, Telegraph and Sunday Times.

At uni, whatever's kicking around - I usually buy a Sunday Times for the Culture section, and because it keeps me going all week, but tend to save money ebcause of communal papers.

Just because I'm used to it, I like the Telegraph news coverage, can't stand the Times's. But for arts (which is the main reason I'd buy a paper), G2 and to a lesser extent Times2 take some beating - G2 is excellent, as is the Observer review.

And then Private Eye, how couldn't I, and other periodicals - Sound on Sound, Hotdog, and odd copies of thigns like Uncut and Edge.

I feel out of place in this sea of Guardian readers.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:38 / 25.09.01

I work in a press monitoring agency, and therefore I get PAID to read newspapers. Unfortunately, it means I have to read ALL UK broadsheets, tabloids, Wall Street Journal and International Herald Tribune. (Born in 71, btw.)
BUT- I read the Guardian for information, columnists etc (though it sucks that they fired Mark Steel- who now writes in the Independent Thursday Review), the (spit) Daily Mail to work myself into a righteous fury (I shit you not, there was a letter the other week applauding the S.African traffic police for being so willing to take bribes - "I know it may sound a bit corrupt, but it keeps the traffic moving freely, puts a few more quid in the pockets of the officers, and prevents clogging up the courts with unnecessary cases"- AAARRRGH!)- and- get this- the Financial Times USUALLY has the funniest TV listings page.

16:09 / 25.09.01

Originally posted by Stoatie:

though it sucks that they fired Mark Steel- who now writes in the Independent Thursday Review

Amen to that.
Mark Steel is the bollocks.

They also fired Jeremy Hardy, don't forget - and I worried earlier this year they might of fired Steve Bell when he was 'away' for about three months.

Sadly, however, they haven't fired Julie fuckin' Burchill. But we live in Hope.

16:10 / 25.09.01

I was born in 1980... and I read some of the paper when someone else brings one home. Mostly if something catches my eye as being really important, or interesting...or if I'm exceptionally bored. I also catch bits on the net...and, until recently, only occasionally on the TV. I've been watching the TV news a lot the past couple of weeks though...

16:30 / 25.09.01

Mark Steel is not just the bollocks, he's the fucking daddy. The Mark Steel Lectures on Radio4 are remarkably brilliant - witty, informative, and bang on with their viewpoint of the modern world.

Why do all the best writers have to be lefties?

The Return Of Rothkoid

21:11 / 04.10.01

quote:Originally posted by sirius:
Why not tell the whole truth?
Surely you don't all sell your souls to get your jobs?Worthwhile at this point, then, to dig out the quote that Rosa (I think) put up in another thread: quote:"There is no such thing as a free press. You know and I know it. There is not one of you who would dare to write his honest opinion. The business of a journalist is to destroy truth, to lie outright, tp pervert, to vilify, fall at the feet of Mammon, and sell himself for daily bread. We are tools, vessels of rich men behind the scenes. We are jumping jacks. They pull the strings, we dance. Our talents, our possibillities and our lives are the properties of these men. We are intellectual prostitutes."

-- John Swainton, the ex-editor of the NY Times, addressing his staff on the day of his retirement.That in mind, I don't read that much in terms of physical newspaper. I'll check out the Observer on occasion, have read The Times. In terms of online news, I read the BBC's news site, the Guardian's site, the Sydney Morning Herald and The New York Times. And whatever else turns up, I guess.

sirius

01:16 / 06.10.01

Rothkoid,
Thanks for the quote, I return a quote for a quote:
President Bill clinton at a DNC fund raiser in NYC 1997;
"There is a government within the government, and I am not in charge."
A congressman known to me personally who does not wish to be identified: "We are just window dressing."
On topic almost, I have been present several times when channel 6 in Philly PA USA covered & canned reporting of a story. That night on the news, a half-truth conservative version of the real story got aired. I asked a ch6 reporter later what happened. He replied "We try to get the whole story. Our News managers decide what gets aired."
Why not tell thew whole truth?
Surely you don't ALL sell your souls to get your jobs!

02:16 / 06.10.01

Sirius also bear in mind that the guy who wrote "Senator's Son: The Unauthorized Biography of George W. Bush" and uncovered both a source and strong evidence of W's coke use ended up seeing his name discredited, his book dropped from the original publisher's (it was later published through soft skull press), and was killed several months ago in an "accident."

sirius

04:26 / 06.10.01

Many here in America are buried under the Bushes
I expect one day to join them if I ever fail to move fast enough or often enough.
That is whyI post to complete strangers, in another country.
Someone might "keep hope alive" (Jesse Jackson)
because the cause of freedom of by and for the individual is the greatest cause is human history.
This screen ID and isp is somewhere among my 30-40th range. 17th computer, because sometimes I must leave all and move on suddenly.
Even the good guys get warnings from within the evil empire.
"the revolutionary moves among the people like a fish through the water." Che'

sirius

23:49 / 06.10.01

"There is no such thing as a free press. You know and I know it. There is not one of you who would dare to write his honest opinion. The business of a journalist is to destroy truth, to lie outright, tp pervert, to vilify, fall at the feet of Mammon, and sell himself for daily bread. We are tools, vessels of rich men behind the scenes. We are jumping jacks. They pull the strings, we dance. Our talents, our possibillities and our lives are the properties of these men. We are intellectual prostitutes."
-- John Swainton, the ex-editor of the NY Times, addressing his staff on the day of his retirement.

Page: (1)2