News Hounds

WOOF! WOOF WOOF! WOOF! That’s the signal you hear in my house when the Times Union thumps down on the front stoop at about 4:30am. It’s nice that the dogs announce the arrival of the newspaper; I’m usually up by then so I step outside grab it  —but only after the carrier has cleared the house so they don’t think I’m in there waiting.

There would be four days less barking if we lived in Michigan and subscribed to the Detroit Free Press. That’s the paper that’s cut home delivery down to three days a week: Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. To me that’s a tragedy.

Internet or no internet, it’s hard to beat a real newspaper. Sure, you can sit at the computer and get your news, but can you fold a computer and stick it under you arm? Can you really sit outside and read it while having your coffee? Pull it apart and share it with someone? No. And newsprint isn’t just handy, it’s aesthetically pleasing. Your monitor is not a newspaper in the same way Kindle is not a book. And who wants to read the comics on a computer? Or the obituaries.

Yes, I get lots of news off the web every day —but the print edition remains an important part of my life. And the dogs? It’s their job to bark when that newspaper lands. You want to put a dog out of work?

6 thoughts on “News Hounds

  1. I don’t subscribe to the TU yet they randomly deliver it to me a few weeks a year, despite my requests that they NOT. I don’t actually like waking up before 5 a.m., and even now that my dog is no longer around to alert me to the presence of the intruder, the delivery folks seem to universally have noisy mufflers. Despite my appreciation for local reporting I’m tempted to say “good riddance” (while yelling at those kids to get off my lawn, of course).

  2. There used to be a guy in my neighborhood who would park and then run stretches of the route on foot. Quite a workout.

    By the way: do newspapers not trust kids to distribute their product anymore —or are kids unwilling to do the work?

  3. By the way: do newspapers not trust kids to distribute their product anymore —or are kids unwilling to do the work?

    I’m betting it has to do with the liability, and they can give drivers longer routes. But man, would my kid love a paper route.

Leave a Reply to Sarah Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *