A1: a front page AND a steak sauce
"In fact, there's nothing wrong with buying a newspaper and not reading it at all. People who don't really need glasses get them to look smarter. Bachelors who don't really need dogs get them so they look adorable to single women at the dog park. How many of us have cobweb-covered treadmills taking up space in the basement? And they cost a lot more than 35 cents."
That's one of 11 steps in John Kelly's guide to reading The Washington Post (via Romenesko).
I would have added a 12th step: "Don't take everything in it so seriously. Sometimes stories are written, photos are taken, and games are played just for fun, to give people a reason to smile. If you don't think those occasions are funny, fair enough. But the world won't end. Just turn the page." Of course, this might fit better as part of Step 6: Be skeptical.
Update: A reader weighs in on why the Post's online edition is better than the newspaper's print product (again via Romenesko. If you pull it up you have to go way down the site).
Personal note: The Battens and the Grahams may not need your 50 cents, but I do.
Comments (2)
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[a] newspaper consists of just the same number of words, whether there be any news in it or not. They may likewise be compared to a stage coach, which performs constantly the same course, empty as well as full. The writer, indeed, seems to think himself obliged to keep even pace with time, whose amanuensis he is; and, like his master, travels as slowly through centuries of monkish dulness, when the world seems to have been asleep...
From "Fielding's Advice to Bloggers," http://pratie.blogspot.com/2005/02/fieldings-advice-to-bloggers-2.html
Posted on February 11, 2005 2:08 PM
Kelly's guide to reading the Washington Post has some remarkable similarities to a column last year by Fred Reed , technology columnist for the Washington Times. Just wondering ?
Posted on February 13, 2005 4:48 PM