Not Reading the Papers

I seem to have given up reading newspapers again. This was less a conscious decision than a combination of circumstances somehow squeezing the newspaper-reading option out of my day-to-day life. I can't say that I feel any lack. In the days when I did read the papers diligently, I soon realised that almost nothing of what I'd read remained in my head the following day (or indeed hour) - it just briefly cluttered up my brain, then disappeared. Newspapers seem to me now such big, uninviting, time-devouring beasts - they ask too much, and why bother? Especially as most of what is in them is padding in various forms - the gist of most pieces can be gathered from headline and pull quote alone - and there is little writing in newspapers that is actually enjoyable to read. Much better and much pithier writing is to be found (surrounded, admittedly, by much dross) around the blogscape - and news, of course, is everywhere; the days are long gone when we needed newspapers for the first part of their name. Do we really need them for anything else? The number of people who do feel the compulsion to buy a paper regularly is clearly in decline, and the wood-pulp-based part of the newspaper industry is contracting (the only paper putting on substantial sales is a rag called The Daily Star, which consists largely of what are known in the trade as 'upskirt' photos - is this the future?). As far as I'm concerned, time spent reading the newspapers is time that could have been so much better spent reading something worthwhile, listening to music, writing something, taking a walk and looking around at the world, or staring vacantly into the middle distance.