My comment about new beat writer and your replies has me wondering:

[The Peeper]

How many of you still subscribe to a newspaper, either print or online?

As mentioned in the first post, I do the local Starkville Dispatch which is a spinoff of the Columbus Commercial Dispatch. I also use Twitter/X as a news/sports source only. I don't do politics at all on it, drives me insane but for news its a good source.

If you don't use a newspaper, what is your major source of news and sports info?

 

[greenbean.sixpack]

no to all of the above, all my news come from SPS and the OT at tigerdroppings.

 

[FormerBully]

I have never subscribed to a paper. Social Media and here is my morning paper.

 

[jxndawg]

I'm 53, so am old enough to remember the joy of reading the paper on the weekends, esp. on Sundays, when it would be big. I subscribed to the Clarion-Ledger from the time I graduated from college until about 10-12 years ago ... by then I'd started getting more of my sports news from places like this and Twitter, and the paper had gotten really small and redundant, since I was getting everything online.

For years I worked out at lunch at the (now closed) YMCA on Fortification in Jackson. David Hampton, who was some kind of higher-up at the C-L back then, and I were talking one day (prob. c. 2002), and I asked him how they thought the rise of online news was going to affect the print newspaper business. He said they knew it would affect them, and said the only thing local papers had going for them was that no website was going to pay somebody to go cover a Jackson city council meeting. He also said that print advertising was still important to a certain demographic. Twenty years later, I wonder if either of those things is still true.

 

[BulldogBlitz]

no to all of the above, all my news come from SPS and the OT at tigerdroppings.

Now I understand what is wrong with you. I stick to the poli board.

 

[SoJxnVol]

no to all of the above, all my news come from SPS and the OT at tigerdroppings.

Yall laugh at this but message boards have literally turned into a newspaper for me. Other than dark horse press, this is my go for news. You get news, sports, weather and the opinion section on this site. Hell, when I was in middle school and high school my ADD would kick in in computer class and I would get on genes page ( way before Rosebowl.) or VolChat for my recruiting fix. These days SPS is my fix for everything.

 

[dorndawg]

I read SPS magazine but only for the articles.*

Like others have mentioned, I do get a fairly high percentage of news from this here website - especially on topics that wouldn't have came up for me otherwise. Big shout out to all the weather dawgs too.

 

[greenbean.sixpack]

Now I understand what is wrong with you. I stick to the poli board.

The poli board has some of the dumbest/most unhinged commenters i've ever seen (exception being Reddit). Trump could set a flag on fire, take an OM on the original US constitution, drown kittens and pee on the pope, they'd still defend him.

 

[Willow Grove Dawg]

I just turned 60. I don't think that you could have ever convinced me 30 years ago that I would not be getting a newspaper delivered to my residence daily.

I grew up in Pontotoc - we had the Tupelo Daily Journal & Memphis Commercial Appeal both delivered to our house daily plus the Pontotoc Progress weekly.
While a student at MSU for 9 semesters (Fall 84 thru Fall 88) - I got a newspaper out of the machine at the post office everyday.
I have been in Flowood/Reservoir area for all but 2 years since graduating MSU. I got the Clarion Ledger daily until 2005ish & dropped the subscription because they could not get it delivered on weekdays in time for my spend 15 minutes reading before leaving for work.

I would probably still be getting the C/L if they could deliver it timely, but I don't miss it at all.

 

[Called3rdstrikedawg]

When I was young I got all my news from Walter Cronkite and my weather from Woody Asaf.

 

[Called3rdstrikedawg]

Forgot to add Local news from Caltan Crowell!

 

[DoggieDaddy13]

When I was young I got all my news from Walter Cronkite and my weather from Woody Asaf.

I got my televised sports from George Michael and Michael "The Rube" Rubenstein.


And we LIKED it!

 

[vhdawg]

How many of you still subscribe to a newspaper, either print or online?

As mentioned in the first post, I do the local Starkville Dispatch which is a spinoff of the Columbus Commercial Dispatch. I also use Twitter/X as a news/sports source only. I don't do politics at all on it, drives me insane but for news its a good source.

If you don't use a newspaper, what is your major source of news and sports info?

I pick up the Northside Sun and Madison County Journal every week, but I skip the Rick Cleveland columns

 

[DawgNsuds]

I'm in my mid 60's and back in the day always started my morning with a cup of coffee and the morning paper. Haven't subscribed in 15 plus years. Most of my news come from X or pages like this.

 

[Maroon Eagle]

I subscribe to The Athletic

I also support Berkeley Breathed’s Patreon which means there’s a chance I could see posts about the Bloom Picayune…

 

[grinningmule]

SPS and TigerDroppings for current news. I branch off from those to source materials for fact checking purposes. Message boards are the modern news aggregators.

 

[cowbell88]

I never grew up with a paper. I’d go get the DDT (Delta Democrat Times) on Sunday’s during football season and some during week during baseball season, just to see my name or photo.

My wife was a publisher for 2 local papers for 10 years. I helped deliver from time to time. It’s a very time demanding business. When I’d deliver, I’d bring one home and read, but didn’t miss it enough to go get one when I didn’t deliver.
Social and SPS is much easier. Coffee in one hand phone in other and you don’t have to deal with a dang insert that you always have to pick up off the floor.

 

[Herbert Nenninger]

43 and I still get the Daily Journal in Tupelo. My kids love reading the ‘Sunday funnies’.

 

[Colonel Angus.sixpack]

When I was kid we got the paper daily. As an adult I would get the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday editions. I read CNN and Fox but refuse to subscribe to either. I do watch the ABC national news at 5:30 pm on TV. Definitely leans a little left but doesn’t seem over the top about it.

 

[FormerBully]

I’m 35 and sometimes wish we could go back to how things were 30 years ago. I enjoy my phone and podcasts but the 80s and 90s were special. I’d take a daily paperback over social media most days. World was different

 

[dog99walker]

I take Tupelo’s Daily Journal. I watch some tv news. I do not get my information about the world from Social Media, with is a swelling pile of **** and misinformation.

 

[dogmatic001]

I'm 54 -

I subscribe to the Tupelo newspaper and have it delivered in print - I sometimes read it online also.

I read The Atlantic online for national/world politics, not because their slant suits me, but because national/world politics are too complicated to gather in TV soundbites no matter what the slant - I like The Atlantic because I can read it, parse out their slant, and feel well informed.

I have an online subscription to the New York Times and am disturbed by the depth and intensity of their slant however. The NYT has become a booster for their cause rather than an informer. I was once a big fan of the Washington Post until it got wrecked from inside.

Of all things, earlier this year I had to subscribe to Vanity Fair to read their story on Susie Wiles, the president's chief of staff. It was a one-year subscription for $12 or some such and I continue to look at it now and then - it's mostly fashion and Hollywood BS, but so much of our current political direction is heavily influenced by such it's been an informative perspective. I won't renew it though, unless there's another story I need to read.

David Hampton is right - newspapers survive because of the local/local/local content they include. The less they include it, the less they survive. If the Tupelo paper isn't watching the Tupelo city council, who is?

I don't want to get up on my soap box, but newspapers mainly did this to themselves irrespective of the internet. In the mid 90s, chain ownership started buying up local papers by the hundreds and squeezing them for quarterly profits, ruining a whole industry and way of life. Newsrooms could be squoze for savings that paid promptly and didn't show the detriment to the product until many quarters down the line. The Clarion-Ledger is an excellent case in point. As is the Starkville Daily News. The chain-buying-squeezing practice arose quickly but took a couple decades to mature. Papers like the C-L were so ripe for squeezing, the chains treated them like the pig from the Jerry Clower story and only ate them one ham at a time.

The internet was the coup de grace, not the firing squad itself.

 

[CochiseCowbell]

I'm 54 -

I subscribe to the Tupelo newspaper and have it delivered in print - I sometimes read it online also.

I read The Atlantic online for national/world politics, not because their slant suits me, but because national/world politics are too complicated to gather in TV soundbites no matter what the slant - I like The Atlantic because I can read it, parse out their slant, and feel well informed.

I have an online subscription to the New York Times and am disturbed by the depth and intensity of their slant however. The NYT has become a booster for their cause rather than an informer. I was once a big fan of the Washington Post until it got wrecked from inside.

Of all things, earlier this year I had to subscribe to Vanity Fair to read their story on Susie Wiles, the president's chief of staff. It was a one-year subscription for $12 or some such and I continue to look at it now and then - it's mostly fashion and Hollywood BS, but so much of our current political direction is heavily influenced by such it's been an informative perspective. I won't renew it though, unless there's another story I need to read.

David Hampton is right - newspapers survive because of the local/local/local content they include. The less they include it, the less they survive. If the Tupelo paper isn't watching the Tupelo city council, who is?

I don't want to get up on my soap box, but newspapers mainly did this to themselves irrespective of the internet. In the mid 90s, chain ownership started buying up local papers by the hundreds and squeezing them for quarterly profits, ruining a whole industry and way of life. Newsrooms could be squoze for savings that paid promptly and didn't show the detriment to the product until many quarters down the line. The Clarion-Ledger is an excellent case in point. As is the Starkville Daily News. The chain-buying-squeezing practice arose quickly but took a couple decades to mature. Papers like the C-L were so ripe for squeezing, the chains treated them like the pig from the Jerry Clower story and only ate them one ham at a time.

The internet was the coup de grace, not the firing squad itself.

You should post more. This place could use a healthy sprinkling of antiquated words like squoze and, more importantly, paragraphs.

 

[dorndawg]

I'm 54 -

I subscribe to the Tupelo newspaper and have it delivered in print - I sometimes read it online also.

I read The Atlantic online for national/world politics, not because their slant suits me, but because national/world politics are too complicated to gather in TV soundbites no matter what the slant - I like The Atlantic because I can read it, parse out their slant, and feel well informed.

I have an online subscription to the New York Times and am disturbed by the depth and intensity of their slant however. The NYT has become a booster for their cause rather than an informer. I was once a big fan of the Washington Post until it got wrecked from inside.

Of all things, earlier this year I had to subscribe to Vanity Fair to read their story on Susie Wiles, the president's chief of staff. It was a one-year subscription for $12 or some such and I continue to look at it now and then - it's mostly fashion and Hollywood BS, but so much of our current political direction is heavily influenced by such it's been an informative perspective. I won't renew it though, unless there's another story I need to read.

David Hampton is right - newspapers survive because of the local/local/local content they include. The less they include it, the less they survive. If the Tupelo paper isn't watching the Tupelo city council, who is?

I don't want to get up on my soap box, but newspapers mainly did this to themselves irrespective of the internet. In the mid 90s, chain ownership started buying up local papers by the hundreds and squeezing them for quarterly profits, ruining a whole industry and way of life. Newsrooms could be squoze for savings that paid promptly and didn't show the detriment to the product until many quarters down the line. The Clarion-Ledger is an excellent case in point. As is the Starkville Daily News. The chain-buying-squeezing practice arose quickly but took a couple decades to mature. Papers like the C-L were so ripe for squeezing, the chains treated them like the pig from the Jerry Clower story and only ate them one ham at a time.

The internet was the coup de grace, not the firing squad itself.

Vanity Fair is a surprisingly good read at times. It's pricier than VF or Atlantic, but The Economist is a really good one for English-speaking world news. I'd say the same for the New Yorker - the editorial side ofc leans liberal, but you'll be hard-pressed to find better long-form reporting.

 

[kired]

I was a long time subscriber to the Daily Journal. Cancel that maybe 10 years ago. The papers kept piling up and I didn’t read it anymore. Did the digital version for a few years, but gave that up 4-5 years ago too. I’m not subscribed to any particular news source now.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

I'm 54 -

I subscribe to the Tupelo newspaper and have it delivered in print - I sometimes read it online also.

I read The Atlantic online for national/world politics, not because their slant suits me, but because national/world politics are too complicated to gather in TV soundbites no matter what the slant - I like The Atlantic because I can read it, parse out their slant, and feel well informed.

I have an online subscription to the New York Times and am disturbed by the depth and intensity of their slant however. The NYT has become a booster for their cause rather than an informer. I was once a big fan of the Washington Post until it got wrecked from inside.

Of all things, earlier this year I had to subscribe to Vanity Fair to read their story on Susie Wiles, the president's chief of staff. It was a one-year subscription for $12 or some such and I continue to look at it now and then - it's mostly fashion and Hollywood BS, but so much of our current political direction is heavily influenced by such it's been an informative perspective. I won't renew it though, unless there's another story I need to read.

David Hampton is right - newspapers survive because of the local/local/local content they include. The less they include it, the less they survive. If the Tupelo paper isn't watching the Tupelo city council, who is?

I don't want to get up on my soap box, but newspapers mainly did this to themselves irrespective of the internet. In the mid 90s, chain ownership started buying up local papers by the hundreds and squeezing them for quarterly profits, ruining a whole industry and way of life. Newsrooms could be squoze for savings that paid promptly and didn't show the detriment to the product until many quarters down the line. The Clarion-Ledger is an excellent case in point. As is the Starkville Daily News. The chain-buying-squeezing practice arose quickly but took a couple decades to mature. Papers like the C-L were so ripe for squeezing, the chains treated them like the pig from the Jerry Clower story and only ate them one ham at a time.

The internet was the coup de grace, not the firing squad itself.

I think the repeal of the fairness act was the death knell ("nail" for some of you). It led to the rise of unhinged media one-sidedness. I'm unsure how it would be applied to online stuff, but I would assume that if you were in a position that you every requested and got a press credential, you'd be under the microscope. Perhaps there is just to much out there to police these days?

Regardless, we are all being subjected to algorithms feeding us more of whatever keeps us scrolling and have to be our own police, or simply become shills for the people making money off of our clicks and scrolling. It's pretty easy to tell on here when someone is deep in the matrix...

 

[jxndawg]

I'm 54 -

I subscribe to the Tupelo newspaper and have it delivered in print - I sometimes read it online also.

I read The Atlantic online for national/world politics, not because their slant suits me, but because national/world politics are too complicated to gather in TV soundbites no matter what the slant - I like The Atlantic because I can read it, parse out their slant, and feel well informed.

I have an online subscription to the New York Times and am disturbed by the depth and intensity of their slant however. The NYT has become a booster for their cause rather than an informer. I was once a big fan of the Washington Post until it got wrecked from inside.

Of all things, earlier this year I had to subscribe to Vanity Fair to read their story on Susie Wiles, the president's chief of staff. It was a one-year subscription for $12 or some such and I continue to look at it now and then - it's mostly fashion and Hollywood BS, but so much of our current political direction is heavily influenced by such it's been an informative perspective. I won't renew it though, unless there's another story I need to read.

David Hampton is right - newspapers survive because of the local/local/local content they include. The less they include it, the less they survive. If the Tupelo paper isn't watching the Tupelo city council, who is?

I don't want to get up on my soap box, but newspapers mainly did this to themselves irrespective of the internet. In the mid 90s, chain ownership started buying up local papers by the hundreds and squeezing them for quarterly profits, ruining a whole industry and way of life. Newsrooms could be squoze for savings that paid promptly and didn't show the detriment to the product until many quarters down the line. The Clarion-Ledger is an excellent case in point. As is the Starkville Daily News. The chain-buying-squeezing practice arose quickly but took a couple decades to mature. Papers like the C-L were so ripe for squeezing, the chains treated them like the pig from the Jerry Clower story and only ate them one ham at a time.

The internet was the coup de grace, not the firing squad itself.

This whole process you're describing - reading an article, and then sussing out the bias and trying to think about it critically - is exhausting to me. Although, in fairness, a lot of them have gotten to where their bias is obvious (e.g., the NYT, like you mentioned). Most outlets on the left and right don't even pretend to be objective any more.

The only thing I subscribe to any more is the Wall Street Journal - not because its slightly center-right slant appeals to me, but because it's as close as I can get to being able to turn the filter off in my brain and just read the articles without having to think about what the angle is. To the extent the WSJ has an angle, I guess it's pro-business.

 

[L4Dawg]

I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal online. Its reporting is straight down the middle for the most part. The Editorial Board is center right. I dropped the Clarion-Ledger 25 years ago because they could never get it delivered on time, if at all. I dropped my local daily and my local weekly about 15 years ago. They had too little content for the price.

 

[dogmatic001]

This whole process you're describing - reading an article, and then sussing out the bias and trying to think about it critically - is exhausting to me. Although, in fairness, a lot of them have gotten to where their bias is obvious (e.g., the NYT, like you mentioned). Most outlets on the left and right don't even pretend to be objective any more.

The only thing I subscribe to any more is the Wall Street Journal - not because its slightly center-right slant appeals to me, but because it's as close as I can get to being able to turn the filter off in my brain and just read the articles without having to think about what the angle is. To the extent the WSJ has an angle, I guess it's pro-business.

I'm a big fan of the WSJ and I like the way they do their job. Somehow that publication has not been a regular part of my consciousness but I need to get it more regularly included. I've been an online subscriber before and may look at doing a digital subscription again.

I agree the sussing process is exhausting and its cause is concerning. Nevermind the slant I can see, what about the slant that leaves key stories unreported altogether? That's what worries me about the NYT. Recently they had a story on bison removal in Montana - cattlemen were against having bison next to their cattle - it was a lengthy story but nowhere in it did the NYT say why cattlemen oppose bison: because of the diseases bison carry that are mild to bison but destructive to cattle. I happened to know that - but what about all the other stories that obscure things I don't happen to know?

I think I will look at a WSJ subscription again.

 

[Bulldog Bruce]

The poli board has some of the dumbest/most unhinged commenters i've ever seen (exception being Reddit). Trump could set a flag on fire, take an OM on the original US constitution, drown kittens and pee on the pope, they'd still defend him.

Don't you mean he could cure cancer, answer the meaning of life and discover a source of unlimited clean power and give it to everyone for free and they would still criticize him and call him Hitler?

 

[greenbean.sixpack]

Don't you mean he could cure cancer, answer the meaning of life and discover a source of unlimited clean power and give it to everyone for free and they would still criticize him and call him Hitler?

This post was referring to the political board on Tigerdroppings. Not the main stream media, or other news sources.

 

[jethreauxdawg]

WSJ online and the local weekly paper for the small town I live in, which is mostly just adds or community announcements with some local high school sports coverage.

 

[Wesson Bulldog]

I never grew up with a paper. I’d go get the DDT (Delta Democrat Times) on Sunday’s during football season and some during week during baseball season, just to see my name or photo.

My wife was a publisher for 2 local papers for 10 years. I helped deliver from time to time. It’s a very time demanding business. When I’d deliver, I’d bring one home and read, but didn’t miss it enough to go get one when I didn’t deliver.
Social and SPS is much easier. Coffee in one hand phone in other and you don’t have to deal with a dang insert that you always have to pick up off the floor.

Which papers was she publisher? I was publisher at Copiah County Courier for 22 years!

 

[FreeDawg]

Traditional newspaper is trash today. You need to find whatever topic you like and find who you think covers it well and balanced. This is going to sound harsh but I think kids going in to print journalism today are idiots. Spending money & time to go in to a dying field makes no sense. I think that’s why we see so many idealogues and activist. The best and brightest aren’t going in that field anymore.

 

[jethreauxdawg]

Traditional newspaper is trash today. You need to find whatever topic you like and find who you think covers it well and balanced. This is going to sound harsh but I think kids going in to print journalism today are idiots. Spending money & time to go in to a dying field makes no sense. I think that’s why we see so many idealogues and activist. The best and brightest aren’t going in that field anymore.

So, are you trying to tell us you do not subscribe to any newspapers or that you subscribe to multiple?

 

[Wesson Bulldog]

I will tell y'all first-hand of what happened to the weekly paper at which I was publisher for 22 years-The Copiah County Courier.

To make a long story short, the industrial base in and around Hazlehurst began to crumble soon after the mills quit taking shortwood. This decision eradicated a part of the local economy on which all small businesses relied - quick money and cash. I firmly believe that this one act was the first nail in the socio-economic coffin of the town.

Mom and pop stores-the advertising revenue providers-closed with no heirs to take over. Hazlehurst City School District fell into state conservatorship. Whites moved out of Hazlehurst into the county or retired and moved to Florida, Gatlinburg or wherever and canceled subscriptions. Many life-long resident readers passed away and their children came by to cancel the subscription because they 'haven't lived here in 30 years'.

The 'death by a thousand cuts' continued when FB was new and every small start-up business thought it was the ****, so they would not buy print. The advent of smart phones shut off inserts from major stores, like Walgreens, Walmart, DG, Family Dollar, Dollar Tree and grocery stores like Ramey's and Sullivan's. Apps became the new 'new'. Younger people did not grow up reading papers like we did. I remember going by the local fuel stop on the way to school every day for a Clarion-Ledger or JDN to see if our team's score was inside and to keep up with all the other HS and college sports. And, Sunday papers, they were incredible. One could find everything he needed to know in a Sunday C-L. We as an industry, did a very poor job of capturing young readers in the early 2000 to 2014 or so, and we paid a terrible price.

Futhermore, the newspaper business in our part of the state was strong when the C-L was strong. When USA Today took over, the C-L went downhill quickly. The ripple effect hit our area, as some folks lumped in all newspapers with the 'liberal rag Clarion Liar'. We even published Rick Cleveland's columns for a while after he became director at MSHOF. It wasn't enough to grow readership and subscriptions, and, therefore, advertising lineage.

Alas, I left the business in 2018 and started my new career here in Brookhaven at the Ford place. That story continues to be written. In many ways it nearly mirrors the previous one.

 

[FreeDawg]

So, are you trying to tell us you do not subscribe to any newspapers or that you subscribe to multiple?

Zero newspapers but I pick digital media à la cart for news/commentary. For MSU it’s Hadad & Robbie. For politics it’s Maher, Victor Davis Hanson, Dave Rubin, etc… Each topic I’ll have my people. Print journalism is unbearable these days.

 

[HotMop]

How many of you still subscribe to a newspaper, either print or online?

As mentioned in the first post, I do the local Starkville Dispatch which is a spinoff of the Columbus Commercial Dispatch. I also use Twitter/X as a news/sports source only. I don't do politics at all on it, drives me insane but for news its a good source.

If you don't use a newspaper, what is your major source of news and sports info?

I haven't had a newspaper subscription in 20+ years, I get my news by doom scrolling.

 

[DoggieDaddy13]

Newspapers mainly did this to themselves irrespective of the internet. In the mid 90s, chain ownership started buying up local papers by the hundreds and squeezing them for quarterly profits, ruining a whole industry and way of life. Newsrooms could be squoze for savings that paid promptly and didn't show the detriment to the product until many quarters down the line. The Clarion-Ledger is an excellent case in point. As is the Starkville Daily News. The chain-buying-squeezing practice arose quickly but took a couple decades to mature. Papers like the C-L were so ripe for squeezing, the chains treated them like the pig from the Jerry Clower story and only ate them one ham at a time.

It's the American Way!

Otherwise known as the Corporate Squoze!

 

[johnson86-1]

I do not subscribe. I tried to support our local paper because I think well run news papers are practically a public good, but ours (like most) was and is trash. I get it. The internet hammered them and they weren't in a position to get any good writers or thinkers to work for them, so they are a staff full of mediocrities chasing revenue, so of course they become basically print clickbait.

Sucks because I like a good newspaper. Sitting down with coffee and spreading out a paper is just a completely different start to your day compared to sitting down with coffee and scrolling on your phone or ipad.