the wonderful world of veena.

02 May 2011

for the love of a newspaper.

I have been realizing more and more in the last few weeks how much I miss reading a newspaper.  We don't get a newspaper at home anymore because it's just me, and it's not really worth it.  Plus, the newspaper guy for some reason doesn't like to bring the newspaper I like - The Hindu - but rather the Times of India, which spends more time on celebrity and Bollywood news than it does on proper local and international news.  At one point we were getting both papers, because Kishore liked reading the Times, and the interns and I preferred The Hindu.  While I was gone last year, however, they went back to only one paper, and the guy kept bringing the Times.  When I inquired about a change last year, he started bringing an entirely different paper, so I decided it wasn't worth the hassle, and just started reading my news online.

For the past few months, I've been spending a majority of my time perusing the online sites of bbc, nytimes, and cnn, using them to get my dose of information on what is happening around the world.  I've recently stumbled upon another site, good, which focuses a lot on more socially-conscious articles - especially regarding education and combating climate change - which appeals to me greatly.

In some ways, it has been good.  There are times during the week that I stay either at Amaidhi's or Pranay's house if I've gone into town, and therefore am not home the following morning to read the paper.  And I can easily pick and choose which articles I want to read and which ones I can come back to later if there is time.  Also, with the vast range of online magazines and news portals, I can read multiple articles on the same topic to gather different viewpoints.

But it has its downside as well.  If I'm not home and don't get a chance to see the headlines online, I don't have a physical paper to flick through to see the headlines.  If you don't check a news website over a 48-hour period, you're going to miss a lot, especially because of the speed at which these sites get updated.  And honestly, I don't enjoy sitting at my computer for such a long time just to read the news.  It's not particularly comfortable.

One of the things I am most looking forward to when I move back State-side this summer is being able to sit with a proper newspaper and absorb all of the information that is contained within it.  I know many newspapers have suffered as the amount of knowledge online and the number of Internet users have increased over the last 5-10 years, but I still love having a physical paper to read through.

and yes, I know that it might not necessarily be sustainable to print such large papers.  but look at it this way: if I'm reading a physical paper, my computer is not on, thus saving a lot of energy.
xx

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