Newspapers have always been a huge part of my life. I grew up watching my parents read the big-city daily that came to our driveway every evening and checking our small-town weekly for school lunch menus and ballgame wrap-ups. I met my husband while working at the college newspaper. My first jobs as a college graduate and later as a newly divorced woman and single mom were as newspaper reporters. My husband is a newspaper sports editor, I’m a newspaper columnist and we pick up newspapers everywhere we go. Am I worried about the future of newspapers as the industry faces crisis and change? Hmm … maybe. Read my column today at http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20090130/ARTICLES/901300301
Coffee with Cathy
Pour a cup & take a break
Coffee with Cathy 
I have personally wondered about this for some time now. I know that I practically live online, and not only I do read online news through my browser (updates from the major services) but I also read my local paper online. Being the frugal (read: cheap!) woman I am, I often wonder why my parents and inlaws still subscribe to an actual paper when it’s all available online. Maybe it’s a generational thing, I don’t know. I know it must cause a burden on the newspapers to lose a lot of their subscribers, so I’m not sure how they are making up this deficit? I haven’t read your article yet, going to check that out now.
Yesterday I told my 13-year-old that I was thinking about cancelling my subscription to the Washington Post to which she promptly responded NO!. When I moved to Israel and started studying Hebrew, there was a basic learners newspaper to read, but I was determined to make it to the big time and read the dailies. When I could read a headline and then a caption and then an article, I knew I made it. Newspapers, have been an important part of my life too. I read online, but it’s not the same and I am too selective in what I read. But when I have the paper spread out and I turn from page to page as I drink my coffee, I discover articles I never would have found online. Oh, one last newspaper tidbit: I lost my virginity to my editor at the college paper. But we didn’t get married.
Thank y’all for sharing your newspaper thoughts. I so appreciate the dialogue. And, Laura, love the college-paper editor story! Good for you!