Rediscovering Newspapers

One of the activities that eat up a huge chunk of my online time is reading articles. Sometimes I catch up on news, sometimes I read on social commentary,  gossip, and whatnots like Buzzfeed, Thoughtcatalog, etc (my favorite is Lifehacker). While it is of course healthy to take a peep into the perspectives of different people from different belief systems, there are times when I think some of these are just carefully-worded junk. It's funny how people with twisted reasoning can gain sympathy and believers by simply relying on witty rhetoric. But then again that's what makes the internet interesting.

Even if I love reading these articles, I'm realizing that the overload of content and the fact that just about anyone can publish their work, is turning this end of online content into a pile of confused mess.  Just like how videos of cute dogs and cats can now be considered junk because there's just waaaaaaaaay too much of them. It can be tricky to sort through the ones with real value.

Even self-declared news websites can produce a lot of crap nowadays (though not all really). If in the pre-internet era you can trust all the facts you see in new articles, nowadays you'd have to take things with a grain of salt because they tend to make typographical mistakes, errors in citing references, and sometimes even their facts are just downright wrong. I don't really get what their editors are doing, but I think they're less strict on their online articles because they know that they can undo their errors by simply hitting the "edit" button. And all this while acting like arrogant journalists at that (*ehem*ehem*tamaan-na-ang-tatamaan*lol).

Anyway, this line of thought has prompted me to rediscover the one medium that has been grossly affected by the rise of online journalism - the newspapers.

It happened in one of those days I allotted for leisure reading. I brought a magazine and book with me and took note of a couple of websites I'd like to visit. But someone left a newspaper on the table that I sat on in Coffee Bean and I was tempted to take a look.  And before I knew it I was already leafing through page after page after page of the newspaper and spent almost 2 hours reading it all. And I really liked it!

I am one of the many who used to just check out the entertainment section of newspapers for comics and random gossip. Heehee. But in that one sitting, I realized that there's actually more reason to read news papers . Here are some:

1. Because they're printed, newspapers are kinder to the eyes - quite like reading 'real' books vs ebooks, the experience of reading newspapers allows for a more relaxing experience because there's no computer screen to pain your eyes. There are also no adjacent tabs and to distract our reading.

2. More carefully researched details - When you print news, there's no taking back words and random errors that may have been committed. And so the pressure for accuracy is higher. While of course errors and lapses still to occur, it's much more few here as compared to their online counterparts.  I also feel like there is a lot more quality in news items published

3. Wide array of articles - Newspapers already compile several topics in one bundle. Just keep turning the page and everything is shown to you: Current Events, Lifestyle, Entertainment, Sports, Business, Technology, Social Commentary. I realize that all themes of articles I've been wanting to read are actually on newspapers. And you can be sure that what you're reading are columns from credible people in the field, so you get more value out of what you're reading.

I'm lately amused by the fact that I am now enjoying the business section of the papers. I mean wow I feel so mature! Haha! I think it's brought about by the fact that I'm recently dabbling into stock market investing so I now actually 'care' about what happens to infrastructure, manufacturing industry, retail, and the like. 

I'm realizing that business is a less stressful read as compared to current events, because business articles talk more about profits, losses, tie ups, closures, and strategies. The dynamics surrounding these very interesting and I appreciate articles that provide a back story on these to help people understand more. The factors affecting these are of course complicated and a-plenty, but at least it's not as stressful as a president challenging the supreme court or people killing off kids on the other side of the world!

I go for the Philippine Star because I find them a better choice in terms of content and credibility. We have Manila Bulletin at home though and they're okay. I now see to it that I get to read the papers at least once a week. I feel that it’s a very productive way to spend my time as opposed to reading online then finding myself Tweeting and Facebook-ing away after five minutes. 

Newspapers + breakfast is love!