My first paying job was with the Montreal Gazette; my brother and I worked together as paper boys. We each took a side of the street and delivered the morning paper, usually throwing them from the sidewalk to the door. When we finished our deliveries, we would sit down and read the paper, starting with the comics.
I have moved on from a paper edition, choosing now to subscribe to the web edition of the newspapers I read. But that web format just doesn’t cut it. It is sterile, inert. It has no character, the sections on the web edition seem to float in free space, they lack the foundation that the physical sections of a paper edition confers.
However, some newspapers do offer a digital replica of their printed copy, which among other things, includes the comics (which seems to be excluded from the web edition).
I have enjoyed reading the news in this format, but I can’t explain why. Is it nostalgia? Is it that the format infers information, like the digital vs. analogue watch face? I think, as suggested above, there’s a psychological element as well. Or, may be the reason is the comics (and obituaries; I’m getting older).
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