HALLIE EPHRON: I read the three newspapers ever day: The Boston Globe (delivered to my door, thank you very much), and the online versions of the Washington Post and the New York Times.
When the Sunday Globe lands on my front walk, usually I've been up for an hour or two, waiting for it. I used to start with the ads. Remember the many pages of Sales that department and grocery stores used to publish?
With fewer and fewer stores springing for paper-based advertising, and no need for a single additional item of clothing in my closet, I head straight for the Comics. Then the bridge column. Then Meredith Goldstein's sensible advice column, Love Letters.
After that, I do not go to News. Or Food. Or Arts. Or, heaven forbid, Sports. Next stop: Real Estate.
I am endlessly fascinated by which houses in my town have sold and how much they went for. And part of me is fantasizing about where I'll go when I shed this big house I'm carrying around, it feels sometimes like it's on my back. I wonder, wouldn't it be nice to live somewhere that I don't have to change the ceiling light in the kitchen and replace the fan over the stove and get a new door to the patio and figure out why the basement gets wet in torrential downpours.
The "assisted" of Assisted Living sounds like the magic bullet, though my friends who have moved there tell me it's often not quite what it's cracked up to be. And, well, I'm just not ready for that.
What keeps me here are my garden and my wonderful neighbors on all sides. We're not exactly friendly but we're totally there for each other. Also I've got beds for all my kids and grands and off-street parking for the lot of them, and plenty of room for my granddaughter to do cartwheels and backflips and for my grandson to practice his soccer skills. It's also a great house for playing hide and seek.
Still, here I am on Sunday morning, browsing through the houses that have sold in my neighborhood.
The next section I go to is obituaries. Yes, I look at who's died in my town, and how old they were when they kicked it. (Hoping and praying there's no one I know.)
Always there are all too many dearly departed who are younger than me, but fewer now than at the beginning of the Covid epidemic. Thank goodness.
After real estate and obituaries, I go to the crossword puzzle, though Sunday's is always challenging.
What about the actual news? World and local news? Book reviews? Movie and TV? I do get to them. Eventually. In a speed reading kind of way.
Do you have a newspaper ritual? Do you read on paper or online? Where do you start, and what do you skip. And what does it say about your priorities at this point in your life?
I read online papers as well as the one that's delivered. I check out the headlines, the human interest stuff, any recipes . . . then I just sort of glance through the rest . . . .
ReplyDeleteSounds like roughly my process...
DeleteIn Sacramento we used to subscribe to the Sacramento Bee (delivered, until we started traveling so much that we went online, not wanting papers to pile up on our porch.) I usually looked at headlines, comics, and the NYT crossword puzzle. Rajan usually looked at headlines in more depth, comics, and . . . real estate. He looks at real estate everywhere he goes, not that we intend to buy anything. He just loves comparing the values and prices.
ReplyDeleteNow that we are in Portugal, we read the Portugal News (in English) and Google News, and BBC News (all in English), and we read quite a few articles in each. No comics, though. And no crossword puzzles. (sniff).
I have a problem, though, I'd like to share: I keep re-subscribing to JRW and I get a few posts in email and then none, and when I visit (like today) I have to subscribe again. For some reason I keep getting bumped.
I wish I could fix it... I'm going to blame blogger, which only intermittently and unexpectedly recognizes me as Hallie Ephron and more often I have to enter my name and web site... Event though "blogger" has me logged in. When in doubt blame Google.
DeleteThat works for me. :-) I've had trouble with blogger, to the point that I changed to wordpress, because blogger made it hard for people to comment on my posts and, when they got through, for me to reply. I think I've solved it partially by bookmarking JRW for the times it doesn't show up in my email and then resubscribing.
DeleteYour ritual sounds wonderful! I used to love my mornings with the Oregonian--not the ads so much, but the comics, the advice, the opinions, and the news, and yes, the obituaries. My favorite was the Sunday Monster Sudoku which varied in difficulty. The really hard ones I would save and work on for days. Unfortunately, they changed it to something that wasn't nearly as fun. They also ran too many pieces and editorials bashing PERS (the public employee retirement system) and I got angry and canceled my subscription. Now I read WaPo and NYT on line. It's not the same cozy experience as the coffee or tea and Sunday paper routine.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that thing about getting pissed off at the editorials... I feel like shaking the editorial writer when the Boston Globe opines on public schools and how things should be taught... seems like teachers are always in the crosshairs. I invite the editorial writers to spend a few days in the classroom and THEN opine away.
DeleteExactly. Let them try working a day at 9-1-1 and then opine about slashing our pensions.
DeleteThank you Hallie. I love this subject and agree with so much that you described particularly obituaries. I have become more avoidant of repetitive grim news articles. ( I do keep up but not over and over and over.) I have been watching newer outlets such as Semaphor (multiple newsletters founded by alums of NY Times and Bloomberg) openly contend with readers avoidance of their uniformly frightening and depressing approach. I support a favorite very local news outlet that does splendid investigations. I am retired so I have a very long list of publications I read daily.
DeleteWashington Post and NYT online. The Sunday Cincinnati Enquirer raised its prices and dropped key features like the TV Guide and I gave up, though I miss the comics and horoscope. I follow real estate when it's a house in the area going into a bidding war: first the ""coming soon" sign, then the "showings begin" day and the "all offers by 5pm Sunday evening will be opened and considered." The drama! The anticipation! The gossiping among dog walkers: how much did they get? Of greater interest: how much did they get nailed for during the inspection?
ReplyDeleteI love the advice columns and Hax in the WP and in the NYT, the "which would you chose?" real estate column.
Oh gosh that sounds like me on real estate. Endlessly fascinating. If it's a local showing I do try to "drop by." What amazes me is how "stages" all the properties are these days. Can't you sell a house "as is" any longer?
DeleteI agree with you on the staging because all the personality is taken away from the house, and it is usually so sterile that I couldn't imagine living there. I wonder on the move to redo kitchen's and bathrooms, etc., rather than just tidying them up. Leave that cost out of the price and let me do it to what I would like myself, though I suppose some people just like a turn-key. Part of a new house is making it your own, and it seems like a such a waste to do it over again, but it was just done and you don't like it!
DeleteFour years ago we tried to sell our house without repainting, or staging, and it just didn't sell. It was painful to have to get all the personality scrubbed out of it before anyone would offer us less than our asking price.
DeleteOn the other hand, all three daughters have sold homes in the last three years by doing all that stuff first, and they all made money on the deals.
We get a real paper, because it is more fun to read it that way, and because we need it in the winter to light the fires. They put something on the flyers that make them impossible to use for a good fire starter. He who harumphs reads it first during breakfast while watching the news and mostly ignoring me talking to him about various things while he is reading – rude, I know. I get the paper later.
ReplyDeleteThe best part for ‘our family’ has always been the obits. 20 years ago, I would sit and discuss who died with my parents – before we did our individual puzzles. Still, even though they are gone, we read all the obits and comment on age, picture, and most of all what was written. One of the drs who I worked with a long time ago, wrote emphatically that he had died and he was dead – not passed into any other state of matter. (Me too – I will die. To quote my once 6yr old son, dead is dead – get over it.) Next comes how old they are, where they lived, and next of kin. Then we read, hopefully how they died (accident, heart, cancer) – noisy parkers here. Then comment on how old/young they were, or was it a tragedy (?suicide). Did the dead person write their own obit? Does it explain the person so that we get an idea of their personality – other than they were the best baker (everyone in Cape Breton makes the best biscuits), and their dog will miss them, and oh, they await the Toronto Maple Leafs winning the Stanley Cup..
Yesterday, I found out that a compatriot of my father had died in April. He was 93, and very cognizant. He grew up in a fishing town, was an engineer and many other things but always came back to the family home in the summer to be a part of the lobster harvest. The last line of his obit read “Wayne & Tony - don’t burn my boat!” Now that is class!
Ha ha ha! Margo, is "he who harumphs" related to "she who must be obeyed" (Remember Rumpole!) And isn't it fun when you read an obituary obviously written by a family who member who was not a big fan of the dearly departed. Yes like you I intend to be dead, not passed (or worse passed over). Great questions you raised. Love the tag line for the fishing/engineer.
DeleteI am with you on paper papers, Hallie. We get the Globe and the Newburyport Daily News (which now is only Mon, Weds, Thurs, Fri...) on our driveway every morning. Because the AM is my creative time, I love reading the local rag with my lunch and curling up on the couch with the Globe in the afternoon. I usually only browse the news, because by that time of day I've already heard updates on the main stories via Heather Cox Richardson and NPR.
ReplyDeleteSundays is comics first, but on weekdays I save them for last as a treat. I never miss reading Metro, Food, and Arts sections. We get the NYT Sunday crossword from the library.
Also, I hear ya on the house dilemma!
I'm impressed... yo can do the Sunday crossword? I max out on Wednesday. The Washington Post has a great new puzzle KEYWORD. It's fun.
DeleteHallie, somewhere in the WordPlay commentary in the online NYT, I've read that the Sunday puzzle is the same level of difficulty as the Wednesday puzzle, just bigger. The "arc of difficulty" goes from easy Monday to most difficult Saturday, with Sunday as out of the arc.
DeleteElisabeth
Hallie, I used to read three papers a day. But that ended when my mother died and the cost of the paper kept rising while the contents contained in it kept shrinking. Now, you practically need to take out a loan to afford a newspaper habit. I'll read certain articles online on the paper's website but in general, I've stopped bothering trying to keep up anymore.
ReplyDeleteWhich stinks because I loved reading the paper. I would read front to back usually. Unless there was some big sports story that I couldn't wait to read. On Sundays, I would read the comics and sports first then work my way through the rest of the paper (well, the parts that interested me anyway...I'm not a real estate or classifieds person).
Since I don't read the paper anymore with cost being one factor, I guess what it says about my priorities in life is that I want to put that money towards bills. :D
Hope you consider subscribing to the online papers you miss. It's WAY cheaper. That's what I did with the NY Times. The Boston Globe I keep because I support local reporting, and also it's within my budget.
DeleteWe have subscribed to the Columbus Dispatch for decades, and got it in paper form until recently. Honestly, our move to digital was driven primarily by how bad the delivery service became. It reached a point where I was reading it online once or twice a week anyway, so we acceded to the inevitable and moved to online only.
ReplyDeleteLike Edith, I read the Sunday comics first, but save them for last on weekdays. In general, after comics my priorities are first Life & Arts, then Metro, then Business.
Our paper was bought by Gannett a few years ago and we increasingly refer to it as USA Today/Columbus Edition, as they have pulled back so much from local reporting and are so reliant on their news network. It makes me sad to see this once great newspaper fade.
I have a wonderful newspaper delivery person - weekdays paper is here by 7. YAY. And I tip him generously.
DeleteIt's a shame what's happened to local presses. Fortunately my local paper, the Milton Times, is privately owned and continues to pump out a weekly that's full of truly local news.
I read online only these days -- my local Winnipeg Free Press, and the Toronto Star. Plus I have bookmarked other sites I skim -- The Washington Post, Deutsche Welle, and BBC. I, too, am fascinated by the Real Estate sections. Crazy money, these days!
ReplyDeleteCrazy, indeed. Remember when the term "millionaire" meant something?
DeleteI also read only online news: my local Ottawa Citizen with my daily email at noon. Then (Canada's) CBC news and Globe & Mail (national, local). Just news articles, nothing else.
ReplyDeleteYou're like the healthy eater at the all-you-can-eat buffet, Grace.
DeleteThis is such a great question! During the week, I read the Boston Globe and the New York Times, pretty much in order… Trying to think if that’s true. Yes, pretty much front to back. And then the Washington Post online.
ReplyDeleteOn Sundays though, different story. First, I scan all the papers just for the headlines on the front page.
Then, from the New York Times, I see if I can get the spelling bee seven letter pangram. That comes first.
Then I look at the book review magazine then the Boston Globe arts and style section, including the book section.. Then I’ll read what I call the women’s sports pages— the style section of the Times. That has the Ethicist, and the wedding announcements, of course.
Then I read the Arts section of the Times.
Then I read the front sections and news sections of all of them, and THEN the blind date section of the Boston Globe Sunday magazine, and save the comics for last.
And then I do the New York Times Sunday crossword, knowing I should be working on my book, but it’s just so much fun.
I never do the Globe crosswords, I wonder why that is…
Jonathan reads the paper is absolutely in order, and my scattershot nothing makes that possible. By the time I’m ready for the front news pages, he is finished.
This is the best question!
laughing at the two of you vying for sections ... my Jerry and I used to fight over who got the comics first. Not fair, because I read the comics in about 5 minutes and he'd linger there for 20.
DeleteTwenty minutes? That must’ve been some serious philosophical contemplation… :-)
DeleteHallie, these days I am so bad about reading the newspapers.
ReplyDeleteAt the beginning of the pandemic, they stopped delivering the daily papers to my door and I had to wake up very early in the mornings to get the paper before one of my neighbors had a chance to steal my papers. It was exasperating! Finally, started subscribing to Sunday only papers (two local papers and the New York Times).
My newspaper ritual for many years was reading the Carolyn Hax column in the papers, the Book Lady (Barbara Lane) in the San Francisco Chronicle, and the comics. These days, I start with the Book Reviews in the Sunday papers (one local paper still includes the Book review pages in the pink section and the NYT still has the Book Review). I like to read the NYT Style Section. Always look for food recipes in the Food Section of the Sunday papers. Two local papers includes the Comics and I always read that. Sometimes I read the Real Estate and the Obits.
Get the daily news online on my iPad. No TV now. Not a fan of the new Flat TV. Want to keep my old TV, which probably should be replaced. Only Streaming videos on my computer like the Coronation and sometimes Good Morning Britain on Britbox.
Wow! This was long!
Diana
Diana, boo hiss on newspaper-stealing neighbors.
DeleteI have two newspapers, the Washington Post for national news and some really interesting opinions and the Portland Press Herald, which does a great job on important local issues and of course has the famous columnist, the Maine Millennial.
ReplyDeleteI don't watch any TV news; everything I get comes from the two newspapers and NPR. I love newspapers, and I do sort of miss the days when they had everything you needed to know; what was on sale, where the yard sales were, personal ads... Gone, all gone.
I think it is incredibly important to have a subscription to your local paper, because if they fall, then where are you getting your local news from? Who's going to be holding your town and county politicians accountable? We tend to think of the press as big media, and there is some of that obviously, but it's incredibly important to have people whose jobs are to shine the light everywhere in your own community.
Seconding: "it is incredibly important to have a subscription to your local paper, "
DeleteAnd if you think journalism is dead, read one of the articles about the Stanford freshman, Theo Baker, whose research and reporting for the Stanford student-run newspaper led to the president of the university Marc Tessier-Lavigne having to resign
ReplyDeleteWow, that is quite the story, Hallie. I had missed it entirely. The dogged pursuit of the truth -- reminds me of All the President's Men, which is an all-time favourite true-story movie of mine. So slow moving and yet so suspenseful.
DeleteBaker comes from a family of journalists!
DeleteThere was a time when I read three or four newspapers per day. In an effort to reduce paper clutter, I now read newspapers only on line. I have an all-access digital subscription to the New York Times. I start with the Spelling Bee, which I love. Then I move on to different sections. I now save the actual news for later in the day. I don’t want to spoil my morning! I skim the local newspapers online, and I never miss the obituaries. I’ve been fascinated with them since childhood. The job I had for the last twenty-one years of my working life required me to read obituaries regularly. I just keep on doing it! Recently, I tried a four week trial subscription, combination print and digital, to a local newspaper. The print part was just the Sunday newspaper. They could not seem to get around to delivering the Sunday newspaper, so I canceled everything. For the next few weeks they called a couple times a week, trying to convince me to try again, even after I told them to remove my contact information from their database. At one point I told them that I go to the library regularly, and I can read it there for free.
ReplyDeleteDebRo
Fascinating! When we got the local paper, I'd start at the back, in a similar progression to yours, Hallie, with the addition of the want ads. I loved reading about jobs and their qualifications, for some reason.
ReplyDeleteNow my day starts online , first with with JRW, then the New York Times, where I go down the page, opening tabs of mostly news articles I want to read. Then Wordle, Spelling Bee, and the new matching puzzle (which is still not available in the app, for some reason). I post my Wordle score on Facebook, and catch up there, then onto news sites and more tabbing: BBC, NPR, CNN, WSJ, local obituaries and those from my hometown, one local TV news site, weather, stock market reports, Washington Post, Slate, and Rolling Stone. Plus, I read Heather Cox Richardson and Jay Kuo's Status Kuo every day.
No wonder I have such a pile of books to read!
I start my day with HCR and JRW :)
DeleteI miss newspapers. My lifelong dream was when I retired I would have a porch that would allow me to start my day by reading the paper and drinking coffee. Alas, no newspaper delivery in my neck of the woods. I received the Sunday Times for years, then moved to a series of non-delivery areas. Loved the Times. Read the books, and arts sections first followed by the magazine section, scanned the front pages, read the obits (21 years as a probate paralegal - occupational hazard - and there are some great stories there), the wedding columns and then - sharpened the pencils for the Sunday Times Crossword. Oh, heaven.
ReplyDeleteYes! to the stories found in the obits. Such lives have been lived...
DeleteShalom Reds and readers –
ReplyDelete------------One of my earliest memories is walking the five blocks to our local “candy store” to pick up our copy of the Sunday New York Times. It was reserved for us, which meant that we paid for it, (perhaps $1), a week in advance; always paying for next weeks edition, while picking up this week’s edition. I remember at the age of 5 being deputized to pick up the paper by myself. The biggest responsibility was to count the sections. The front page had the list of the sections, and because the sections were never in order, you had to count them and remember which ones you had already accounted for. The news was section 1, Week in Review was section 4, Sports 5, etc. No one read the Real Estate section, but it was important to get what you paid for.
==========I was a reader, pretty young but I don’t really think I paid much attention to the paper until I was ten or eleven. My father read the New York Times daily and hoarded stacks of them in my parents’ bedroom. The New York Times had no “funnies”, but I enjoyed the political cartoons in the Sunday section 4. One year, an aunt of mine gave me a book collection of Op-Ed columns of Russell Baker.
------------These days, I have a subscription to the online versions of the New York Times and the Washington Post. I don’t get to read much of them. I am just too busy with other stuff. The Times, the Post and NPR have podcasts with summaries of the day’s news, which I listen to on most days in the morning. The Post has an option to listen to many of the articles read by a computer-generated male or female voice. I use it a lot. At work, when it’s not busy, I often take a look at the obituaries. I like reading about people who I never knew lived and now they were gone. Approaching 70 myself, it now matters to me to learn if they were older or younger than me and by how much.
------------There is a local paper called the Bucks County Herald which is free, and I can pick up if I wander into the center of town. Most of the local news is of no interest to me. However, I do look at the obits and the police blotter. The most common crimes are “driving under the influence”, shoplifting and burglary. Every now and then, we’ll have an honest to goodness homicide. Or even embezzlement.
----------I wish there were something for journalism like Spotify. For a reasonable monthly fee, I can listen to almost any recorded music that there is. I would pay double, if there was a way to bring down the paywall of all sorts of news websites like the Wall Street Journal, The Times of London. Etc. Barring that, the Times of Israel has no pay wall but encourages readers to support them voluntarily much like the NPR model. That being said, we certainly have a surfeit of riches of online reading material. I used to go to the library a lot, but not since Covid. I probably should make the effort to go back. I do use their online resources to read publications like The New Yorker, whose monthly subscription cost is just too exorbitant, in my opinion.
When we lived in Ontario, on Saturday morning we would drive down to the local gas station/depanneur and pick up a bag of sour cream chips and an Ottawa Citizen, and then go home. Lunch was hot dogs and chips and a movie and we adults read the paper. It would take all weekend, it was that thick. Thanks for the memories.
DeleteFascinating … love that memory of picking up your family’s reserved NYTimes
DeleteSo interesting, Hallie. We get The Dallas Morning News in print daily. I scan the headlines, then usually read all the Opinion page. I really like to get a feel for what people locally are thinking about both local, state, and national issues. Then the Metro, then Arts, and sometimes a quick glance at the sports section. Don't usually read the obits or the comics--I used to but now don't really like the strips our paper is running. Also sometimes do the crossword. We get the NY Times in print weekends, which I love. I go through every section, usually in order. WaPo online, also the Boston Globe. And the Guardian. And the Telegraph because a friend gave me a subscription. Gee, that's a lot of newspapers! But we don't watch TV news, or cable news channels, unless there is some emergency. I also look most days at the Evening Standard (London) which doesn't require a subscription. And I wonder where all my time goes!
ReplyDeleteI love the free tabloids handed out (or used to be handed out) at the London underground stations during the evening rush hour. We'd peruse the football news over dinner and I would bring a few gossipy pages back for my son.
DeleteWe stop getting the print newspaper when the Hub left his position of Music Editor at the Tribune, which was folding. I get my news primarily from the NPR podcast Up First while walking my dogs. It's more than enough.
ReplyDeleteWhy, yes, Hallie, I have a newspapers routine on weekends (weekdays it's whatever my husband and I can take turns) and it starts with...the Real Estate section. My local paper is the New York Times and we do get it delivered every day, right on our front steps. Real Estate is a good way to start half asleep. Nothing upsetting, nothing important, often interesting. And there is a Q & A section that sometimes has questions so weird there is a plot there. Why not? Large sums of money and tense emotions around "home as castle." Then I work my slowly through Style ( weddings), Arts and Metro Life until I am caffeinated enough to face the actual News. A missed paper throws my hole routine off! :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm way late here, but want to address your comment, "The "assisted" of Assisted Living sounds like the magic bullet, though my friends who have moved there tell me it's often not quite what it's cracked up to be." Your friends are correct. My husband and I lived in two separate facilities in the recent past, and while they were absolutely essential to our well-being (he was recovering from brain surgery, I had taken a disastrous tumble down some stairs into a basement; then he had some psychiatric problems while I was out of the country ), they are NOT something I'd recommend for a reasonably healthy adult. ~Lynda
ReplyDelete