how do you read a newspaper?

do you subscribe to one? do you prefer the real thing, or the online version?

do you read the entire thing, or just your favorite bits?

do you read it every day?

Several subscriptions (Dutch), read one of them every day all the way through, the others I skim through (online subscriptions as well). Then again I'm editor-in-chief of a local newspaper, so it pretty much comes with the job to check it all out and read most of them.

Forgot to add: absolutely, never, no way could I go without.

Real thing, retrieved from the box outside by the spouse and delivered to me in bed with coffee. Yes, I am spoiled.

Before work I read the fluffy sections (Style, Food, Home, Whatevs) and Metro. Also Dilbert in the Business section. I generally get around to the front page when I get home from work. Don't tend to look at Sports unless I'm checking college hoops scores.

Every damn day. Also while on vacation.

With my eyes, stupid.

i subscribe and prefer the real thing, though it's not uncommon for me to read (other) online sources first

do you read the entire thing, or just your favorite bits?

meaning what? do i read it cover to cover? no, though there are days when i come close. i read or at least scan the news - that's what it's there for - usually national first unless an international page 1 is more interesting, then international, then sometimes local. almost always read the arts stuff, sometimes before the news. these days, i read at least some of the business stuff, which i used to wholly ignore (except the advertising/media stuff, which i always liked). in the sports section, i only read the auto and tennis and maybe baseball stuff, so it gets completely ignored this time of year. i got pretty into the crossword recently, but it got old kinda fast.

do you read it every day?

i get it every day, but don't always read it, tho i get news from lots of other sources and try to go back to papers i've missed for stuff that's worthy

I'm a scottish male, I start with the backpage.

how do you read a newspaper?

o and the extra sections - always travel, most of the time the week in review, try to get to the restaurant reviews and news (and more recently the recipes) in food, read 1/3-2/3 of the magazine (never the cartoons) about 1/2 the time, usually check the womens' sports pages but scan at best the rest of style (thursday gets ignored). i read science occasionally and home almost never.

I like newspapers' coverage of anything intensely local. People griping about the frequency of buses. Drug crime. Traffic. Restaurant reviews that make a case for how a particular neighbourhood is "on the up." I read that stuff first.

That local stuff is so important and is one element of the newspaper that often doesn't successfully make the transition to the online edition (sometimes considered trivial and omitted, or else rarely updated, or buried ten clicks deep in a confusing menu system). Detailed local information is also being occluded as big daily newspapers in Canada become increasingly subject to their parent companies' online content policies. Who wants to read about bus routes, anyway? That isn't going to get us more total clicks and unique visitors, is it?

o and i almost always read the oped page, sometimes before anything else

I will have to admit to being the lazy one: I get the paper every day, but tend not to have enough morning time to do much more than page through the main section and the arts, reading headlines/capsules and the top halves of maybe four or five articles in each. I'll usually pick up major news across the course of the day in the office, get home, page through some of the other sections, maybe do the crossword, and that's pretty much that.

1. ensure paper is not a murdoch
2. flick through scanning for lols
3. give up, go to abc web news

is this a trick question?

tend not to have enough morning time to do much more than page through the main section and the arts, reading headlines/capsules and the top halves of maybe four or five articles in each

that's what subway rides are for. not that anything more than head/capsules are necessary at times.

I walk to work.

P.S. I strongly prefer the physical paper in times of adequate table space, and I'm 50/50 otherwise, but I suspect one of the great problems facing trad newspapers is that it is no longer quite acceptable to be seen reading a broadsheet at your desk at work, as if it broadcasts being off-task in some way that obviously watching YouTube doesn't

I dunno, in my recent experience someone reading the paper is giving off a clear signal that that person is on a sanctioned and very deliberate break from work, whereas someone watching a youtube video looks to be skiving.

How you do it is important though. If your feet are up on the desk you look slack but if you're hunched over it off to the side it looks more acceptable somehow.

It might have to do with your position and line of work, I guess: e.g. if you are the sort of person who wears a suit to work your paper-reading probably looks very engaged and professional. In other types of positions it will look like "I am so bored and not-working that I've exhausted conventional computer-based time-wasting and am now just openly reading Thursday Styles"

Oh good point, the person I had in mind was my boss.

in pr, or at least in the kind of pr i theoretically do, youre supposed to read the morning papers

yeah, i think reading news online at work is a lot more acceptable than pulling out a newspaper

one of the few nice things about this job i guess

Good point. I tried pulling out a book at work a few times recently and people looked at me with this weird kind of hostility. As long as you're staring at a screen you're okay, but someone reading from a piece of paper may be "dangerous" and get "ideas."

Oh yes, totally: I did book publicity for a while, and was probably a better thinking then than at any other time in my life, mostly because it was totally "work" to just sit around reading the New York Review of Books or any given political weekly all day long.

all over

"was probably a better thinker," I mean

I can understand the screen-vs-book thing, to an extent -- I think the presumption is that on-computer reading is this sort of fleeting low-attention-span thing where you can snap back to working at any moment, whereas reading printed matter seems more like you are settling into doing something non-work over a longer term?

I read Paperboy: Confessions of a Future Engineer a few weeks ago and was astounded at the number of editions papers used to put out in the '40s and '50s: morning, lunch, afternoon, evening, late. And enough people would buy and read them all. Now, I read part of the paper on Sunday: book review, national, international, travel, business. I stopped getting the daily paper because it was constantly being stolen (this was in a different building); now that it would be secure I'll probably sign up for it again.

unfortunately given the clients we work on my time is better spent (from my bosses' point of view) watching the today show and reading the post and usa today than it is reading the nyrb... i guess i sound like a snob but you can only watch hoda race kathy lee griffin so many times before youre begging for some nice long overwrought political thought

The most dangerous aspect of reading a newspaper at work is that someone will invariably say 'are you on lunch?' and you will say 'yes' and that person will then hog your lunch break by talking to you about boring shit for 40 minutes. Reading news on a screen never elicits such an approach.

I'd better read newspapers and mags at work. At the ESM offices we get the Guardian, ther Independent, the Mirror and quite a few glossies.

If it's just me:

Observer on Sunday, sections in this order: Media/Business/Cash section, Magazine, News/Comment, OMM/OFM/Obs Woman (each week of the month, a different 'second' mag), Review, Escape. Bin the Sport and Observer Sport Monthly.

Guardian on Saturday follows the same pattern, roughly. Don't read the Guide on the day unless I want TV schedule.

Guardian in the week: bin the Sport and third sections unless Media, Society, or Technology. Read News/Comment first, then G2.

1. read headline on cover
2. look for comics

i get paid to read the newspaper, so i don't bother getting it at home.

but when i'm on vacation, i enjoy being able to get a paper that i didn't read most of the night before.

The most dangerous aspect of reading a newspaper at work is that someone will invariably say 'are you on lunch?' and you will say 'yes' and that person will then hog your lunch break by talking to you about boring shit for 40 minutes. Reading news on a screen never elicits such an approach.

― sonderangerbots and loops (Autumn Almanac), Monday, December 22, 2008 10:16 PM (9 minutes ago)

^^Ridiculously OTM

NYT routine (Mon-Sat):

Step one: Frantically tear through Arts section to retrieve crossword puzzle.
Step two: Neatly fold the page featuring said puzzle into a perfect rectangle.
Step thee: complete with extreme prejudice
Step four: Reassemble Arts section. Read (unless it is the Friday times & the puzzle is in the Drama section)
Step five: Casuall browse rest of newspaper, with a particular eye to front page, op-ed, domestic & international news

Sundays are a whole different story. I like the Times Magazine as much as anyone else, but why the hell do they have to put the crossword there? It's maddening enough that I can't go through my folding ritual, but then you have that wisp-thin glossy newsprint which always tears, and which your pencil always finds 600 ways to penetrate.

These days I do my Sundays online. In fact, all of my other newspaper reading is done on line too.

Haha I think the common thread to work-newspapers is this widespread belief that nobody could possibly want to read a newspaper or set aside time in life for it -- that if you have one in your hand, you must have exhausted every other thing you could possibly be putting your time toward (and also welcome someone's conversation as an alternative)

lol, Pillbox, that was me for like 10 ten days recently, then i decided to choose life, etc.

Actually, in the interest of disclosure, I'll admit to having become a NYT crossword elitist in that I rarely bother with anything pre-Thursday anymore, unless I am bored or waiting around for something.

or be old

xpost: If by life you mean ILX, I may have to call your bluff on that one.

xxp agh iPhone xpost death

@Nabisco, that's only one half true. I mean, I lead a newspaper, making newspapers is what we do, but even then most colleagues who see you're reading a newspaper, leaning back in your chair, will barge in my office. Whereas when they see me staring at the computer screen, they come in quietly. "I must be quiet, he's either at work or reading an online newspaper". In todays world staring at a screen is by many regarded as work - and they don't even know if you're reading ILX or writing your op-ed - whereas holding printed paper in your hands, well... not so much.

touche, xxp

or be old - lol true. I'm pretty sure I was the only twentysomething waiting in line with baited breath on the opening night for the Wordplay documentary. It really put my life into perspective, that.

I occasionally read a newspaper, but I don't take one. When I do buy a newspaper, I immediately dissasemble it, breaking into a "will read" and a "won't read" pile. I then throw the "won't read" pile away, and reassemble the rest into a new, more perfect newspaper, one containing only the sections I might be interested in.

Valid newspaper sections include local and national news and anything art or entertainment related. Comics, opinion and science sections will also be retained, if available. Sports, business, finance, travel, advertising, "magazine", and classified sections will be automatically discarded.

I am never more pleased with a newspaper than in the moment when I have fixed but have not yet begun reading it.

I used to get the NY Times on Sunday (I haven't had time to read it so I've suspended the sub for now). I was very particular about the order:

-Week In Review
-National News
-Front section
-Sunday Styles
-skim business, A&E, book review and travel sections
-save the magazines for later

I never actually get around to reading the magazine...I still have the special Olympics issue. I'll read them someday.

am still trying to figure out the best way to consume newspapers as a freelancer...the only thing about office life that i miss is having a selection of physical newspapers there to go through. (method always the same: start with either main section or G2/T2/other supplement depending on cover headlines or availability; go rapidly through once, stopping for really eye-catching stories; go through again to mop up stuff i missed and maybe a longer piece or two; earmark the really long/thoughtful pieces to read later or never; rinse and repeat with the other section. in times of impt tennis tournaments, start with the sport and fuck the rest. on days when i have stuff in the paper, start with that.)

anyway yeah, now i find myself magpieing over a variety of online sources at the start of the day instead, and it feels woefully incomplete...the websites of all the UK newspapers are designed to lead you down rabbit holes of your own interests, and i've found myself being completely unaware of some developing stories. it doesn't help that browsing news online invariably leads to endless boggling at daily mail comment threads :(

I am never more pleased with a newspaper than in the moment when I have fixed but have not yet begun reading it.

― Bored American Aerospace Defense Command (BORAD) (contenderizer), Monday, December 22, 2008 10:57 PM (13 minutes ago)

Does this mean the promise of a fresh newspaper never delivers? The hope or excitement it stirrs never hits home? I too have this, as a reader, some days. But then there's always the next newspaper, the next day...

I always read papers when out of the country. Last year I was ragged upon for reading The Guardian by a fucking (UK) Telegraph reader.