Moderately Confused by Jeff Stahler for October 12, 2024

I used to buy Murdoch papers until our budgie died.

Just buy a roll of butcher’s paper. It’s cheaper and holds up better. Brought to you by Amalgamated Engineers #243. We solve problems. Our spouses learn to adapt.

The modern newspaper isn’t big enough to carve a pumpkin even if it’s spread open.

A poster of your local candidate should be easy enough to acquire at this time of the year?

You can’t use your laptop?

Paper towels work.

After the demise of the broadsheet, you have to use several editions of the tabloids to cover the table.

finding a newspaper is difficult?

The kids’ reply: What’s a newspaper?

I still prefer “print media” over cable news and videos. It is much easier for me to detect the biases when I can read the words rather than hear somebody talk about the issues. What I do like about the modern world is that a newsfeed is like subscribing to multiple newspapers. I can easily read the same story from different sources or see who carries a story and who doesn’t.

The caveat with using a multi-source newsfeed is that they make money by targeting ads to you. A bot will monitor what you read and decide what articles to show you. Since people are more likely to buy a product if they are in a good mood, the bot will choose sources consistent with what you’ve already read. So if you always read left or right leaning articles, it will build a silo for you.

Spread the wealth. Read from both sides, besides I always want to know what propaganda the other side is peddling.

Even this method is not perfect. If I want to drill down on an issue, I sometimes have to dig around.

Was ad exec for mid major mid VA newspaper of long repute as solid, reliable news source. Two issues a day, all sorts of Press Assoc awards, great writers, etc. Delivered to over 300K homes daily & Sunday. Once published a full college catalog with enrollment forms – approx 40 pages – in tabloid form – first of its kind east of Mississippi River. In 2 years almost doubled enrollment at major local uni.

That was about 5 decades ago. Same paper later was ‘conglomed’ twice and has since been reduced to less than half the page count and is now at about 35K subscribers with another 12k online. Sorry to see that.

Kids are asking " what’s a newspaper?".

Reusable Plastic Tarp…

Can’t find many newspapers at all anymore…..especially since I need them to light my charcoal briquettes in their chimney…..

Don’t you get ads in your junk mail ? You must not have pet birds either.

unintended consequences

Actually, though this is “killing a fly with a shotgun” – you can buy plain newsprint paper at any “U-Haul” store -it’s used as packing…

I just carve it on the bench on our patio with a large bowl to hold the “guts” and seeds. Now, back in the day, I had a cat who loved pumpkin guts and tomatoes. I would spread out the newspaper, dump out the guts, and the kitty would come running to chow down. What a great cat!

I often miss having newspapers around for after-the-fact uses. We only stopped getting them delivered when they stopped delivering them to our door. (They would leave them in front of our garage, or under the outdoor mailboxes for our entire residence complex.) I admit I don’t miss print newspapers enough to acquire my own supply of newsprint or butcher paper.