How informed could one be going print-only in 2011?

[Dick Whitman]

I noticed this morning - hadn't noticed it before - that my local paper doesn't run baseball box scores any more. That would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

So it got me to thinking about a thought experiment - could you be a well-informed citizen in 2011 without the Internet? And what would it take?

I'd like to think I could, but it takes some commitment. We get three newspapers at our house and a slew of magazines - Time, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone, Esquire, GQ, and a couple others. I'm still not sure, however, that I could keep myself as informed as you have to in this day and age without sortable baseball stats at ESPN.com or Politico's reporting on the GOP race and so forth. I would probably have to add the Wall Street Journal or National Review for balance, or I'd miss a lot.

Thoughts? Maybe I'll try it for a couple weeks or a month and report my thoughts afterward.

 

[Ace]

So -- bottom line -- you won't be around for a month then?

 

[Dick Whitman]

So -- bottom line -- you won't be around for a month then?

I'm sure the board would be devastated.

 

[Versatile]

I noticed this morning - hadn't noticed it before - that my local paper doesn't run baseball box scores any more. That would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

So it got me to thinking about a thought experiment - could you be a well-informed citizen in 2011 without the Internet? And what would it take?

I'd like to think I could, but it takes some commitment. We get three newspapers at our house and a slew of magazines - Time, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone, Esquire, GQ, and a couple others. I'm still not sure, however, that I could keep myself as informed as you have to in this day and age without sortable baseball stats at ESPN.com or Politico's reporting on the GOP race and so forth. I would probably have to add the Wall Street Journal or National Review for balance, or I'd miss a lot.

Thoughts? Maybe I'll try it for a couple weeks or a month and report my thoughts afterward.

It depends entirely on the level of "informed" you want to attain. On international and some government affairs, if it's not in the NYT or USAT, I'm probably never going to find out about it. And yes, I mean the print versions, even if I often read the articles online.

You'd really struggle with breaking news, though. But CNN could catch you up on the must-know things, as well as reasons why Bush still sucks but Obama sucks, too.

 

[Brian]

For the most part, I'm print only. I made that decision a few years ago. It's too easy to be a consumer and not a thinker in the popcorn news cycle.

Wall Street Journal, The Economist, NY Times, Esquire, The Atlantic and The New Yorker are in my rotation. I seem to not implode because I don't know about every news item the moment it happened.

I am on Twitter, though, so I'm not being totally honest. But it's purely for sports information.

 

[Dick Whitman]

For the most part, I'm print only. I made that decision a few years ago. It's too easy to be a consumer and not a thinker in the popcorn news cycle.

Wall Street Journal, The Economist, NY Times, Esquire, The Atlantic and The New Yorker are in my rotation. I seem to not implode because I don't know about every news item the moment it happened.

I think this is the main thing I'm curious about. I'd always feel like I was playing catch-up. On the other hand, I feel like I'd be a more efficient consumer of news because things would have a day to settle, adding context and separating inaccuracies, half-truths, and speculation.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

That's the issue in a nutshell, isn't it? How important is breaking news to your news consumption? In sports, where the score's the thing, it's very, very important. For regular news, at least to me, not so much compared to accuracy of information and analysis of and insight on same.

 

[Ace]

Being print only works pretty well for toilet paper.

 

[Alma]

Very. But you gotta spend money for it.

 

[LongTimeListener]

News carries immediacy as one of its primary traits, so I don't see how you could be up on the "news."

Informed, though? You'd probably be better informed because the chaff and the political posturing would be less forceful. Two examples:

1) The Atlantic piece on college sports. If you hadn't read one word of Yahoo's report or the OSU coverage of Tressel or the Oregon/Willie Lyles case, you'd still know how messed up the system is.

2) I read a piece a few months back in Vanity Fair about what was at the time this pernicious little thing happening over in England with some of Murdoch's reporters hacking people's phones. It drew heavily from previously reported material. I never saw any of that original reporting, but it sure didn't hurt my comprehension of the story, and probably helped because it put it all together.

Take the 2012 election. Who is going to make a sounder decision about the presidential candidates -- the one who reads Daily Kos and RedState every two hours, or the one who reads the New York Times daily and the New Yorker monthly?

 

[Dick Whitman]

Take the 2012 election. Who is going to make a sounder decision about the presidential candidates -- the one who reads Daily Kos and RedState every two hours, or the one who reads the New York Times daily and the New Yorker monthly?

So what do you think the answer is?

 

[LongTimeListener]

Take the 2012 election. Who is going to make a sounder decision about the presidential candidates -- the one who reads Daily Kos and RedState every two hours, or the one who reads the New York Times daily and the New Yorker monthly?

So what do you think the answer is?

NYT/New Yorker by a mile. "Issues" to DailyKos and RedState are not really issues, they are just pathetic ways to inflame their own readership and hit everyone with what are believed to be "gotcha" moments. The Ron Paul staffer/health care situation being just the latest example.

 

[trifectarich]

I don't know you have time to read at least seven different magazines that pop into your mailbox.

 

[lantaur]

Take the 2012 election. Who is going to make a sounder decision about the presidential candidates -- the one who reads Daily Kos and RedState every two hours, or the one who reads the New York Times daily and the New Yorker monthly?

So what do you think the answer is?

NYT/New Yorker by a mile. "Issues" to DailyKos and RedState are not really issues, they are just pathetic ways to inflame their own readership and hit everyone with what are believed to be "gotcha" moments. The Ron Paul staffer/health care situation being just the latest example.

Well, one could say that those who visit those websites have already made up their mind which way they'll vote regardless.

 

[Mystery Meat II]

It would be almost impossible to go print-only for sports news consumption unless you were planning on not watching TV sports at all. Every sports channel has some version of the news/score ticker that runs nonstop during games. By default, you're going to get a lot of news -- or at least scores and headlines -- indirectly through game watching.

 

[lcjjdnh]

That's the issue in a nutshell, isn't it? How important is breaking news to your news consumption? In sports, where the score's the thing, it's very, very important. For regular news, at least to me, not so much compared to accuracy of information and analysis of and insight on same.

The analysis and insight online, though, often exceeds that in print. Read the NYT and you'll have a good idea of how politicians are arguing; read a few of the better blogs and you'll learn a lot more about the proposals they're arguing about.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Actually, Daily Kos has one feature containing information I check out daily. It's Today in Congress, and it's a straightforward description of the agenda for both houses and the byzantine procedures that will be used to deal with those agendas. I know the author is a serious lefty policy nerd, but the unintentional hilarity of what he's writing (of which he's aware) is off the charts for me. It's the 21st century, and our national legislature functions as if quill pens and powdered wigs are standard equipment for all members.

 

[Stitch]

I have little doubt you could stay informed. Reading the USA Today every day would better inform you than an average American. The problem is cost. Magazine subscriptions aren't too expensive if you find promo deals online, but getting the WSJ or NY Times in print is going to hit the wallet pretty hard.

 

[Dick Whitman]

That's the issue in a nutshell, isn't it? How important is breaking news to your news consumption? In sports, where the score's the thing, it's very, very important. For regular news, at least to me, not so much compared to accuracy of information and analysis of and insight on same.

The analysis and insight online, though, often exceeds that in print. Read the NYT and you'll have a good idea of how politicians are arguing; read a few of the better blogs and you'll learn a lot more about the proposals they're arguing about.

I think this is something I worry about. I don't understand tax policy from reading the New York Times, at least not unless it's filtered through Paul Krugman in 750 leading words.

That's why I think you'd have to definitely supplement your periodical reading with books and probably some academic magazines.

 

[Brian]

I have little doubt you could stay informed. Reading the USA Today every day would better inform you than an average American. The problem is cost. Magazine subscriptions aren't too expensive if you find promo deals online, but getting the WSJ or NY Times in print is going to hit the wallet pretty hard.

That's what the public library is for. Understandably if you live in a major metro area, that's a hassle. In a small town, it's a five minute drive and I save hundreds of dollars each year.

No way I could afford to buy The Economist. I'd need to sell plasma. I think it's up to about $140 a year.