And so 2009 has ended (without comment from me – how did you all manage?) and I haven’t touched a dozen topics that exercise me on an almost daily basis.
Today it’s newspapers. I was sent an invoice for our newspaper subscription last week and I really really wonder whether I should bother to pay it. When we first moved here I was given a free four month subscription to our local paper: The Loveland Reporter Herald. We soon learned that our neighbours refer to it as the Repeater Herald, as any given edition is likely to be full of yesterday’s (last week’s more likely) news hashed over.
When it came time to renew (pay), I gently declined. A friend persuaded me to try the Fort Collins paper, and I did. While it’s marginally better, I decided after awhile that I wouldn’t bother renewing that either. When I phoned to cancel, they were magically able to reduce my subscription rate by 60%. It’s still rubbish.
We also have The Denver Post delivered. It pretends to be more of a national paper, but has more pages devoted to advertisements than news, and it is a daily occurrence to flip seven or eight pages of the latest furniture sales before coming to a narrow column of ‘world news’ consisting of a headlines and a couple of sentences tucked in beside more furniture sales ads. The editorial is yawnmaking, letters to the editor, facile.
I keep abreast by reading UK newspapers online, and listening to NPR – National Public Radio. Not as entertaining as Radio Four, it none-the-less fills a gap. In Colorado they broadcast the World Service between 9pm and 4am, although it’s not the same World Service that you hear in the UK. I’ve also become a devotee of a few US programs –for those of you who listen online, or download podcasts, I highly recommend This American Life. There is also Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me, which is comparable to The News Quiz and usually has me laughing, much to Andrew’s consternation, as I listen to the podcast on my hand-me-down i-pod (Sally’s old model). It’s very odd to be in the same room with someone who suddenly starts giggling and, because you can’t hear what they’re listening to, you haven’t a clue why.
Ah, but I really miss sitting down in the morning with a cup of coffee and a good newspaper which I know will afford something interesting, informative and entertaining. At the moment I think that, by buying the newspaper, I’m contributing to the odd local career in journalism, and to paper recycling facilities. Is it worth it?
