A joy in reading the printed version of a newspaper

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspaper’s column

Michael Commane

It’s a faint memory with me but I can still remember paper sellers shouting out on the streets of Dublin ‘Herald, Mail or Press’.

The Evening Mail sold in Dublin and ceased publication in 1962. The Evening Press sold across the State and ceased publication when Irish Press Newspapers closed in 1995 and the Evening Herald, also a nation-wide newspaper, was renamed The Herald in 2013 and became a morning publication.

Many people, especially in Dublin bought two daily newspapers.

The newspaper trade has undergone extraordinary change.

Is the demise of the printed newspaper now inevitable? Today everyone is glued to their smartphones. But are they reading newspapers?

Why buy a hard copy newspaper when you can read it all on your phone?

I have been toying with subscribing to the digital version of a newspaper. But I am having second thoughts.

I have the Saturday edition of a national newspaper delivered to my door and I spend an inordinate amount of time reading it over breakfast. It’s a sort of weekly indulgence with me.

It’s many years since I have bought a Sunday newspaper but two weeks ago I bought the Sunday Independent.

I’ve been thinking about it since. It has dawned on me there is an art in newspaper reading, especially at the weekend if you have free time to spend reading the newspaper. I think it is a whole different experience from reading it on an electronic device.

There is a joy, indeed, an art form in spreading a newspaper out on a table. My modus operandi is at first to turn over the pages and pick out a topical or major story that might interest me.

That particular Sunday I leafed through the main section of the paper and the first story I read was Gene Kerrigan writing about ‘real scandals’. 

I’m interested in politics so naturally I read all the shenanigans surrounding the Katherine Zappone affair and whether or not Micheál Martin might be for the high jump. I checked the Newsbrief and saw no one won the Lotto and that a ‘homemaker’ had left €8.4 million in her will. I then put the main section aside and read what Joe Brolly was saying for himself. 

Although writing on GAA matters he came out with a brilliant nugget. He talked about what goes on in dressing rooms and said: ‘Players know when there are cliques’. Don’t we all know when there are cliques? 

We all know cliques do so much damage to an organisation.

Weekend newspapers have reading in them for the week.

I find with anything I read using electronic media I’m far more tempted to skim read it, constantly scrolling down to see how long it is.

There can be a great joy in reading a hard copy newspaper. I’m inclined to think that is not the case with digital media. Then again, am I saying that because I am an old fuddy-duddy, who’s just growing older?

No, I don’t think so. And before a word is said about the environment, newspapers are recyclable and it’s a shame that there is not a single paper factory in the State.

I think I’ll hold off subscribing to the digital version.