It's a nice almost fall Saturday morning here in mid-Michigan with the sun shining and the temperature approaching a degree of warmth. However, this is the first weekend where I have a major change in my routine.
We stopped getting a daily newspaper. In our case, it's the Lansing (MI) State Journal.
All my adult life I've gotten a daily newspaper and on some days more than one. Living here in mid-Michigan, I would quite often collect my newspaper from the porch and then get a Detroit Free Press or Detroit News during the morning and then occasionally get a USA Today. Well, no more.
I grew up reading newspapers and loving it. Whenever my mom would travel, as a kid, the first thing I'd ask for was a newspaper from wherever she traveled to. That never changed much over the years. Growing up in northern Michigan, it was a ritual on Sundays to stop at a curbside newspaper box and get a Detroit paper, first a Detroit Times and when it closed, either a Free Press or News.
These days when my son flies home from Washington D.C., he always brings a Washington Post and I love reading it.
Times have changed. The news in our local paper has gotten thinner and thinner. For a long time, we could justify getting it because of the coupons. Take them to the local Meijers and you could double them. They would pay for the paper.
Even the quality of the coupons has lessened and have become harder to use.
We paid more than $100 every six months for the local paper. We finally decided that money would be better spent elsewhere, like with our internet service provider.
A question: How many baby-boomers who grew up with a newspaper, kept getting it as adults, but have found local journalism lacking and have canceled the paper? Do you miss going to the front porch every morning?
