Reading a PHYSICAL Newspaper for a Week | Day 1

Okay, so I decided to run an experiment. With the digital age of news, the actual physical copies of newspapers have become less popular. I don’t actually read news most of the time (at all) because it tends to mostly focus on the horrible things in life, and not much of the beauty we can experience.

BUT, here we are – and I’m testing out what it would be like to read a newspaper every morning…

So, here is what I experienced after DAY 1:

It is WAY harder to find a newspaper these days than you would think! After searching high and low (and by that I mean three places) I finally found the edition I wanted – The Age. It was the most “intellectual” paper that I could think of, so it was the one I wanted to start with.

Once I actually had the paper, it was time to read. Let me tell you – it takes a long time! To read this paper cover to cover (admittedly skimming the sports section) took me 2 HOURS… which for me, is a long time. I don’t know the average it is suppose to take, but to read this type of content for that long was very, very draining.

There were some good and bad things about this edition of The Age Newspaper, so let’s kick it off with the good:

• I was surprised that the content was not the “doom and gloom” crime reporting that we tend to see in television news formats. It was much more general news and information, which I rather appreciated.
• Very few articles were actually written in a pretentious or overly scholarly way – which made it rather easy to read for the average person

Okay, I know that was only a list of two, and that’s why I got it out of the way early because let me be real with you guys…. There were WAY more bad points to reading this physical paper:

• It was annoying and awkward to try and hold this paper. Pages aren’t really connected and you have to fold and unfold constantly… plus my arms hurt from trying to hold it out properly when the article spanned over multiple pages
• It took me a long time to get through all the content, some of which was uninteresting and not very exciting to read (and I didn’t skip any of the main articles or content)
• It was EVIDENT in several articles where the writer stood on those issues. What side they were on, where journalism is supposed to be an impartial presentation of the facts of a story – equally balanced on both sides of the event. That didn’t always happen
• My fingers got black ink all over them
• There were a few VERY political and opinion piece that basically slammed a certain group of people if they disagreed with this persons view. Not presenting both sides of a situation or debate does a disservice to those you are writing to, and this writer happened to basically call out those who disagree with him a sexist, racist bigot who is cruel on purpose….. absolutely inexcusable if you ask me

So, overall what are my thoughts on reading the newspaper today… I was bored and uninspired. I don’t think I recall any of the stories and the only memories I do have was that they talked a lot about tennis, some about the royals and indigenous current events, and people who wrote in all had opinions on previous stories…

Catch me again tomorrow as I read a DIFFERENT paper, and see if it can squeeze out some more interesting content.

See You in The Adventures!
Christy Grace