Why I Still Subscribe to Magazines and Newspapers in the Age of Fading Ink

 

 

FADED INK, THE INFORMATION AGE, AND THE DECLINE OF MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS

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“One of the responsibilities of being a good-standing member of any community and having the credibility to talk about local issues is supporting the city’s newspaper.”

At one point, I subscribed to at least a dozen magazines. I subscribed to so many magazines, that they began piling up.  Many went unread before being discarded (three cheers for recycling!). Call me a sucker for news and keeping up with current events. I could never turn down the $10 annual subscription to Newsweek or say “no” to the cub scout selling magazines for school for the neighborhood fundraising drive. Sure, I’ll take it. Bill me later.

I also preferred the feel of real paper and actual words and pictures in my hands and at my fingertips, as though knowledge was indeed something real. Like a book, a magazine was a prized possession. Sure, I know all about the current labor strife in Ecuador. Why–there’s an article about it right here in my hands!

But I’ve succumbed to change. We’ve all turned those torn and faded pages, and now beam the constant glow of smartphones and iPads. Our brains are baked in the sunlamps of social media and online media content, which has displaced paper media. I still support and subscribe to multiple online media sources (The Washington Post, Sam Harris’ Waking Up, and others). But I do miss touching real paper.

Catching up to modernity and latching onto popular norms has me down to just THREE subscriptions (see the photo) at the moment. Congrats to Foreign Affairs, Free Inquiry, and Mother Jones–you made the final cut. I’ll likely continue paying for these periodicals until either I die, or the magazines die–whichever comes first.

We also re-started our daily subscription to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which I let lapse for three years and demanded to be stopped when it was bought by Sheldon Adelson. But since that evil force of darkness died, I felt comfortable supporting the newspaper, once again. So, death actually increased a subscription count — by 1.

I think one of the responsibilities of being a good-standing member of any community and having the credibility to talk about local issues is supporting the city’s newspaper (or one of the local newspapers). Otherwise, you’re a sponge and a freeloader. But hey, that’s just me — wanting writers and reporters and people who investigate stuff to be paid a decent living wage.

We all make decisions about the media sources we support and consume based on our own needs and beliefs. However, I do wish more people would weigh these factors and support the sources they gain something from, instead of consuming everything online for free and failing to recognize the costs of such selfishness.

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Addendum:  One major turning point for me on the paper-to-smartphone conversion was flying much less. I used to be sitting on planes, on average, 10-15 hours a month. So, I needed reading material in my hands at all times, and that meant I could plow through a dozen subscriptions just because of downtime spent in an airplane seat. Since my travel diminished and many planes also now offer free internet access, my magazine addiction was broken.