Sadness for things lost to time: long form Sunday paper
15I was thinking of fond memories of getting the weekend paper; about 2” thick folded. Of course there was the color comics section. The pink sports section I was going to rant about on tv these days, but decided not to “unbelievable! Are you kidding me?? Are you seeing this??” Ok I’m done….
Long section of classified ads which basically funded the paper.
Big color ads from Macys and Circuit City, Best Buy, Target.
Edit: oh yeah big Sears ad too.
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yep, and that Black Friday paper was a BEAST!
FWIW I still get the ‘paper’. Had to give up on the print version years ago when they couldn’t keep a delivery driver for this small town for more than a few weeks at a time. I now read the e-version, but at least it LOOKS like the newspaper, even if it doesn’t feel like it.
I was a paperboy from age 11 to 15. You weren’t supposed to get a route until you were 12, but I was a “legacy carrier” since one of my older brothers went on to a “real” job and I inherited his route. Bob Carstetter, the manager just sort of looked the other way.
Speaking of another casualty of time, mine was for the afternoon paper, plus I carried most of my cutomer’s Sunday morning paper too.
It was a pretty good gig and it gave me alot of “walking around” money. Dad always made us deposit half of our job money for college but the other half was all mine to do with as I wished.
@therealjrn
Unfortunately the days of the 2-editions-a-day newspaper are long gone as are most competing morning and evening papers. I really miss the tactile pleasure of holding a paper in my hands, but at least the e-edition actually shows up and it still looks like the paper, print ads and all.
Competition has driven most newspapers to focus more on local news since it’s hard to compete with the 24 news cycle of the 'net. OTOH it seems like the first person they fired was the proofreader/editor. So many articles are almost unreadable due to style or spelling errors. I think the writer starts a sentence, decides to change it, then forgets to delete the original start to the sentence that no longer makes sense. Or they shift parts around and cut-n-paste stuff in the wrong place.
/end rant
@chienfou @therealjrn
we have two, actually, only one is a daily though. The smaller one is the one you used to get free at Denneys 20 years ago or so and is web only now, and pretty much a one man show. The other is owned by the same people as all the other localish papers and they have an e-edition, web edition and an app. and most of the articles are the same ones in all the papers. I get the email web summary for both the local and the larger ‘county’ paper for the same as the local and maybe one article a day is different,
My Mom loved the LA Times Sunday Calendar section. It was a literary world unto itself. I would pour over all the movie ads. Now the LA Times is barely larger than the Daily Breeze used to be.
I think in the first internet wave of journalist destruction, about 50% of journalists were laid off, including my friend. I wonder how mAIny AIre left.
@cfg83
Yep. Today’s instant news consumption has replaced thoughtful journalism. Being first has replaced vetting and analysis. Dan Rather, Walter Cronkite, et al, would be appalled
@chienfou Yeah, I forgot to mention that I liked the movies and my Mom liked the art. She would plan visits to different galleries. We when to Barnsdall Art Park many times.
@cfg83 Dan Rather is still alive, @chienfou
and some would question his impartiality but I’m catching your drift and agree, mostly. 
@cfg83 @therealjrn
Whoops!
@cfg83 @chienfou @therealjrn
Dan Rather does try to be thoughtful (rather than the current fashion in video news rage-baiting or incendiary)
In “opinion injections” he seems almost quaint.
Have always liked him whether or not I thought he was staying “objective” (as “objective” as one can in politics
/youtube what’s the frequency Kenneth
@cfg83 @chienfou
See Nikki Glaser’s joke re the news, from Sunday’s Golden Globes broadcast
CBS is hardly the only potential target for that joke, but CBS made inept into the “target du jour”.
Probably the best joke of the evening:
YouTube short:
https://youtube.com/shorts/Q01tXClXCHs?si=Um22DYJ8augPnNeQ
@cfg83 @chienfou @f00l Yeah, that was good.
I used to get the Sunday paper for the comics and the grocery coupons. At first, coupons were plentiful and if the store doubled you could save a lot of money. Then that went away, then coupons were fewer and fewer. Stores started putting coupons on their apps instead and comics became available online.
I still subscribe to the online paper and I get the weekly hometown paper for my mom to keep up with stuff at home but it’s several weeks behind by mail.
@ironcheftoni
/giphy truth!
A while ago I had an early morning commute, starting at 30th St. Station. Trains were running - newspaper stands were not. There was usually an open bundle of newspapers at the stand with a pile of correct change on top: self-serve. How long ago? A very hefty daily paper for $0.35.
In the early '70s, I worked for The Miami Herald on the phone CS lines in Circulation. I know exactly what those old Sunday inserts were like, as some of my auxiliary duties took me all over the building, and I saw the machinery that assembled them. About twice a year, the Sunday paper got a double insert because the ads wouldn’t all fit in just one. The carriers were issued special bags for those Sundays because the regular ones weren’t large enough.
Things lost to time: typewriters, both manual and electric. Had a few in storage. Guess they’re still there, unless replaced by piles of iron oxide.
Even had an IBM Selectric, equipped to connect to a computer (RS-232? or that other thing? Centronics something?) Used to trawl eBay looking for cheap print balls.
Ink ribbons still available?
(Too lazy at the moment to look anything up.)
Where’s the WD40?
@phendrick Typewriters, like vinyl & record players, have become cool again amongst certain young hipster types; you might want to dig those out & clean them up & put them on eBay or something.
Anyone else use the Sunday comics as giftwrapping paper? We did a time or two.
@januarymick I used to love giving and receiving gifts wrapped in the Sunday funnies.