Non-motoring > Print: a dinosaur? Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Runfer D'Hills Replies: 39

 Print: a dinosaur? - Runfer D'Hills
Without wishing to resurrect any old debates as to how this forum came about, presumably it mainly evolved as a result of some car interested Telegraph readers drifting to an online version and so on...

Never mind all that. Ancient history so to speak.

Thing is, I was driving back from somewhere this week and caught a discussion on the radio about the demise of print based news and the seemingly inexorable rise of online media.

One "publication" they mentioned which stuck in my mind was the success of the "Huffington Post". A relatively new online newspaper from AOL which apparently has a hugely bigger readership than the New York Times. Here's a link www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/

Anyway, just by way of curiousity and discussion, who here buys a proper newspaper every day and who, alternatively now relies on their computer to access written articles?

For me, I still, but not religiously, buy a Sunday broadsheet fairly regularly. I'm not too precious about which one. That decision is pretty random.

What do you do?
Last edited by: R.P. on Mon 30 Apr 12 at 14:06
 Print a dinosaur? - Zero
Get "I" delivered daily weekdays, The Times on Saturday, and The Sunday Times.
 Print a dinosaur? - PeterS
I'll buy The Times and the FT most Saturdays, and The Sunday Times most weekends. Occasionally I'll buy the Independent as well. During the week, unless I'm flying or going somewhere by train, I don't usually by a paper at all. Even then, because I subscribe to the Economist (paper version + digital), I might not as there's often a backlog to be cleared!!
 Print a dinosaur? - borasport
We get a torygraph on the saturday, for the crosswords and gardening as much as anything -much of the rest is unread.
On wednesdays, I'm away from home, so I get a Grauniad, parlty to counteract the tory graph, but mainly so I have 2 crosswords to do whilst having tea

I appreciate it may be an expensive way of purchasing crosswords, but you do pick up the occasional bit of info every know and then

And reading the hotel's Express on thursday morning makes the other two look good
 Print a dinosaur? - CGNorwich
Usually buy the I and occasionally a Times - have given up on the Sunday papers. Have taken to subscribing to Kindle edition of the Guardian when on overseas holidays but wouldn't buy it all the year round.
 Print a dinosaur? - Roger.
Most of the readable dead tree press is too expensive for us to buy, EVER!
I really miss the Torygraph cryptic crossword, though.
I will never pay a subscription to a paper's on-line version.
We do buy the once weekly local rag,(70p) on SWMBO's insistence, but I personally would not bother.
All the news & comment necessary is on t'web.
 Print a dinosaur? - Bromptonaut
Third generation Guardian reader. Grab a copy at the station every weekday but increasingly miss out Saturday. Bought the Standard for years in way home but now it's free :-).

Read a few other papers and professional newsheets on line as part of my job.
 Print a dinosaur? - sooty123
i haven't bought a national paper in about 5 years at least and before that very few. Local papers, i haven't found one yet worth reading yet. All of them full of stories like 'man opens chip shop' next week 'man closes chip shop' etc. Most of my news comes from online, i glance at the headlines on search engines and have a look at any that catch my eye. The online app for france24 is quite good and i have a read of it now and again. I don't read many newspapers mainly because they are so poor.
 Print a dinosaur? - -
About 25 years since i bought a newspaper, i see no reason to buy one ever again, can't abide propaganda and i refuse to pay for it voluntarily.

I heard that Radio 2 item too, Northants was mentioned for the loss, if it could possibly be termed that, of the daily local rags...i'm only surprised they lasted this long, more boring drivel you couldn't make up, not for content but the banal writing, maybe it had improved in recent decades, yeah and pigs will fly.
 Print a dinosaur? - Roger.
>> About 25 years since i bought a newspaper, i see no reason to buy one
>> ever again, can't abide propaganda and i refuse to pay for it voluntarily.
..........and yet the BBC tax funded machine, is paid for by compulsion.

www.biased-bbc.blogspot.co.uk/
 Print a dinosaur? - R.P.
I largely source my news on-line and television - Mainly BBC - this is balanced off by my fortnightly Private Eye. I get the local Trinity owned Daily Post - really poorly written sadly, strange news prioritization - but has enough local content to keep abreast of the news around here. Wouldn't buy any of the Murdoch stuff for years, even less inclined to do so now. May by i if bored enough. As I said most of my info comes from the net, have Iranian and Indian papers saved into my bookmarks - I like to see us as others see us....
 Print a dinosaur? - Armel Coussine
Fox will probably put you in a bad humour Rob but AlJazeera is quite interesting. Good piece on Israel this evening, the huge rift between the country's military and spooks and the government both on what Iran is doing and on what to do about it (if anything). Looks as if the ghastly Netanyahu's days are numbered.
 Print a dinosaur? - R.P.
I used to dip into Fox during any international crisis for an American Joe Soap angle on what was happening. Since I subscribe as little as possible to Sky I don't get it anymore. The international edition of CNN is pretty good, seems made up of UK journos who escaped from ITN and the BBC.
 Print a dinosaur? - CGNorwich
But papers contain a lot more than politics. Even the Mail and Sun occasionally has something interesting if its only the film reviews or the sports page. Could't live without newpapers myself and at £1 or less per throw they are surely a bargain.
 Print a dinosaur? - R.P.
No interest in sports really, film stuff comes from Front Row on R4 or Rotten Tomatoes....which is a reliable site to separate the grain from the chaff...
Last edited by: R.P. on Sun 29 Apr 12 at 22:24
 Print a dinosaur? - CGNorwich
I guess at the end of the day it might not matter whether print survives. What does matter is that intelligent well written journalism survives. The big yet to be resolved is how this is funded. There seems a general reluctance to pay for online information by subscription and a really effective business model has yet to be found other than by of course the BBC.

A future where there is no professional journalism, only extremist badly written extremist blogs is too awful to contemplate
 Print a dinosaur? - R.P.
There is a huge amount of news "clutter" out there now - it has become really hard to judge what is really factual anymore. Everyone has an "angle" these days. We're better informed than we've ever been but actually "know" very little.
 Print a dinosaur? - CGNorwich
I agree - That's why you need professionally produced properly funded journalism, not a lot of amateur bloggers like the Huffington Post
 Print a dinosaur? - Armel Coussine
The Huffington Post is the baby of Ariana Stassinopoulos Huffington, an animated intellectual Greek lady whose rich husband has given her this plaything and outlet for her quirky, maverick right-wing views. At one point some years ago she was 'an item' with the TV pundit and popular right-wing intellectual Bernard Levin.

The Huffington Post's London office is in the Tottenham Court Road building invaded a couple of days ago by the crazed would-be trucker. Indeed at first I thought the Huffington Post was the target. There may be a few who think it should have been.
 Print a dinosaur? - CGNorwich
Seem to remember she often fulfilled the role of token female and intellectual on Question Time. I thought she divorced her husband after he lost the election to Senate and she set up the Huffington Post with the proceeds
 Print a dinosaur? - Armel Coussine
Perhaps CGN. I'm not a religious reader of the gossip columns. But it wouldn't bear the Huffington name for no reason.
 Print a dinosaur? - CGNorwich
It's owned by AOL now. She sold it for $300 million in cash apparently which ain't bad going for a web site mainly filled with blogs.

She's now Editor in Chief
 Print a dinosaur? - Pat
Daily newspaper is delivered along with Amateur Gardening and Commercial Motor from the local village newsagent.
Gardeners World and Performance Bikes drop through the door via Royal Mail by subscription and online versions of other papers are read daily.

It's less than a tenner a week for the delivered ones and keeps the local services we all need.

Pat
 Print a dinosaur? - Armel Coussine
>> Could't live without newpapers myself and at £1 or less per throw they are surely a bargain.

Guh... when I was a student the cover price of The Times, which in those days had the personal small ads on the front page and absolutely no typos, was sixpence. Six old pence, 2.5p to a modern person. As students we got it for less than half price, tuppence ha'penny.

Of course in those days you could bribe a cabinet minister and still have enough left out of a fiver for a curry on the way home.
 Print a dinosaur? - L'escargot
I avoid daily national newspapers because the news is mostly bad. I don't want to hear bad news. Why can't we have a "good news" newspaper to cheer us up?
 Print a dinosaur? - Pat
I have Amateur Gardening for that L'es.

Pat
 Print a dinosaur? - Duncan
Telegraph seven days a week. Quite a bit cheaper (60%?) with the vouchers. I would cancel it, but Lady D loves her crosswords and other mind stuff.
 Print a dinosaur? - CGNorwich
"Why can't we have a "good news" newspaper to cheer us up?"



Because it would sell about 6 copies a week.
 Print a dinosaur? - Bromptonaut
I keep reading this thread and thinking its about desiging a Diplodocus to run off on the Canon!!
 Print, a dinosaur? - Runfer D'Hills
Yeah, sorry about that Bromp. Even I had the same thought and I wrote the thing !

Perhaps a kind mod would insert a comma as above...?

:-)
 Print, a dinosaur? - Roger.
Or a colon.
 Print, a dinosaur? - Clk Sec
.
Last edited by: Clk Sec on Mon 30 Apr 12 at 13:58
 Print, a dinosaur? - Roger.
I think that : would work satisfactorily in this case!
 Print, a dinosaur? - R.P.
OK, OK dunnit. I thought Humph was going to discuss this new fangled 3D printing machine, the vid I saw was actually a Dinosaur model...
 Print: a dinosaur? - Runfer D'Hills
Thanks Rob !

Just reminded me, appropos of nothing really, I knew a guy who's surname was Coghlan which he insisted was pronounced "colon". He was a very nice chap but a bit dim and ended up with the fairly predictable nickname of "Semi".
 Print: a dinosaur? - -
He was a very nice chap but a bit dim and ended up with the fairly predictable nickname of "Semi".

That must have given the girls fits of giggles, and picqued their interest in how he got the name i shouldn't wonder..:-)
 Print: a dinosaur? - Clk Sec
>>"Semi".

Sort of one grade above bungalow...
 Print: a dinosaur? - Iffy
An orchestra conductor who was not popular with the musicians was given the nickname 'diode' - a semi-conductor.

Focus might know who it was.

 Print: a dinosaur? - Runfer D'Hills
Our "Semi" was actually a bit detached. Lights were on but no-one was home so to speak.
 Print: a dinosaur? - DP
I have never bought a newspaper (not counting excursions to the shops as a kid to buy them for my parents).
On a handful of occasions, I have picked up a free copy of something when flying with airlines who still offer such things.
BBC R4 in the car on the way into work gives me my daily fix of news, backed up by the BBC News website.
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