The New Newspaper

When pop went into the old age home, one of the first things I did was to cancel the daily newspaper. The Sarnia Observer also includes a weekly paper, Sarnia-Lambton This Week, which is inserted in there mid-week.

The total weight of paper going into the recycle box every week was considerable, probably eight or ten, or twenty pounds per week. This doesn't include paper packaging that goes into the kitchen garbage.

The problem was that there was so much in there that I simply didn't read. I never go the the bars, or a movie, or shopping. I'm not likely to buy a car, or purchase some lawn service. That takes care of the ads. What about editorial content?

I'm not a sports fan. I never read the lifestyles section, because I don't have a lifestyle. I'm not hung up on food, and drink, or recipes for same. I don't care for poltical and economic columnists, who always have some sort of bourgeois agenda, always go back to the same sources time and time again, each of whom also has an agenda, and none of whom want to offend the publishers of newspapers, all of whom also have an agenda.

Anything that comes out of a poltician's mouth is suspect, yet the media seems unable to draw even the most obvious conclusions.

Why pay good money to have someone spew out crap that is patently nonsense, ninety percent of which I don't read, and by the very act of subscribing, support an agenda which I don't accept whole-heartedly?

The paper is mostly online anyway. If I want something, I can go right to the firm's website. When I wanted an apartment, I went straight to the free online ads that are popping up in every community.

The big difference is that I miss the local headlines on a daily basis, and that I don't always go online to that particular site to check the day's news in the local sense. That is the difference: the newspaper was shoved in the box every day. One way or another, we dealt with it, and were perhaps more aware of it.

But there must be a better way. Until someone can sort of justify receiving the New York Times, or the Sarnia Observer, in the e-mailbox, with no paper, no ink, and none of the crap that I don't want in my paper, at a fair price that actually reflects a rational cost-profit structure, then I don't and won't suscribe to a newspaper in the former sense of the term.

In Canada, the journalists just do too damn good a job of justifying things which are expensive to change. You're too damn good at defending the economy from the enemy, who turn out to be a bunch of working people. You're too prone to defend the poor, downtrodden rich against the greedy unemployed.

They say you get what you pay for. The problem is when they try and shove a whole lot of crap that I don't need and didn't ask for down my throat, and never listen to any of my concerns.

You want propaganda? You pay for it, because I ain't interested. You're a gatekeeper? I don't give a pinch of coon-crap, no matter who's doing it.