I still get the newspaper delivered.
Like, the actual newspaper.
This makes me feel anachronistic and a bit eccentric.
I like that.
It’s ‘downloaded’ to our driveway 6 days a week by the amazing Cheri who delivers it in, almost, any weather. Then I, in my housecoat for the sake of the neighbours, trundle out and retrieve it.
I still read news online.
I mean, it’s part of the gig I have. I constantly need things to make fun of.
However, there’s something special about holding the newspaper in your hand.
It’s large.
It’s floppy.
It’s unruly.
It dominates your field of vision and demands your focus.
You can’t do much else when you’re reading the newspaper. It’s a two-hands or one-hand-one-knee or half-a-couch or table-covering activity.
When I was a kid I would race to grab the Comics section of the newspaper from my Dad on the weekend. So many great comic strips. Peanuts, Funky Winkerbean, Curtis, The Far Side and more.
The comics section was full-colour, fun, and free of things that might bring you down like those boring/depressing stories found in the Actual News sections.
With the advent of the Internet and Social Media… it’s like we’ve plopped the Actual News in-between Marmaduke and Zits.
Actual News is suddenly fighting to be as entertaining as totally made-up comic strips. Before you know it, we’re being shown the January 6th Insurrection in terms of another hilarious dotted-line trek by Jeffy from The Family Circus.
It’s an unholy union.
Let’s define what I mean by ‘Actual News’…
Verified stories backed with accountability.
The ‘Actual News’ can still get stories wrong but they can’t get them wrong all the time without facing some sort of consequences (eg. legal, reputational, etc.).
It’s not a perfect definition but that’s what I’ve got.
There’s currently a Bill in Canada (C-18) that is trying to force your Facebooks et al to pay for the privilege of linking to Canadian News sites.
Facebook, in response, is threatening to block links to Canadian News sites.
Let them block them.
Get it out of there.
While I appreciate the convenience of seeing and accessing a news story in social media, I think it’s bad for us and I think it’s bad for Actual News organizations.
We start allowing natural disasters and serious political events to compete for our attention with that hilarious video of the dog who watches the bear on TV and tries to follow it into the other room when it leaves the screen.
In other words, we are falsely and unhealthily equating news with entertainment.
Give me an Actual News-only social media platform where you and I can follow each other and share stories that are important to us (Apple News is close but not there). Only Actual News Organizations can post and maybe you and I can comment… maybe. Our comments on news stories are, not always but, usually useless.
Being aware of the Actual News is valuable.
It gives you insight and information that allows you to make informed decisions.
It gives you a competitive edge in business or school or work.
It makes you more involved in things that will actually affect you.
Actual News doesn’t and won’t always get it right but they can be held to standards. If they fall below those standards, they’re not Actual News.
Actual News is a necessary societal privilege.
We need to protect it, support it, and invest in it, and not force it to compete with Andy Capp… or in present day (but as equally hit and miss funny) terms, me.
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I have a book coming out in September.
You can buy it here: Stupidpocalypse.com
My wife, Shannon, runs our merch shop.
You can buy stuff from it here: PeaceLoveCanada.ca
Besides all of the actual news there is the important stuff like the obits. How can you eat your breakfast without a newspaper in front of you ? I wish ,however , that our newspapers ( Hamilton Spectator) indulged in more news and less rehash of old features. The whole point of having the actual paper is the sense that you are reading actual news that is relevant to today.