Brendan Finn
Steve Ersinghaus
New Media
16 September 2008
Lay down three measly quarters on the counter and an abundance of news and information is at your darkened fingerprints. The USA TODAY sat folded with at least twenty to thirty other newspapers all stacked at the front of the convenience store. At the public library newspapers are usually stacked behind clear plastic boards holding up other papers and magazines. Fore a mere seventy-five cents as shown in the upper right hand corner of the publication, I took the paper home for observation.
My family and I do not usually purchase the USA TODAY.As uninformed heathens we observe the news through the local publication the Bristol Press. The first thing I had noticed was the the Press opens in a horizontal page-by-page like a large magazine. USA today opens at first glance, in a more verical sense until you actually open up to the individual articles which are displayed horizontally. Underneath is the title and a logo of the world which seems to be motion-blurred through horizontal lines, adding underneath that it is indeed NO.1 IN THE USA.
The front page is folded and a picture of the New York Yankees is seen addressing their many troubles of the season. But what’s important here is the concept that I do not have to start at the front page.But most of the important issues and relevant new items are in the front. I never read the Press like that. In fact I usually start from the back observing local high school sports and work my way to the professional sports.Then its on to the comics and puzzles. Then I check to see if anyone I grew up with was arrested that day,or if someone had committed a bizarre crime. Usually I work my way up to the front of the page, but I despise the Yankees so I moved my eyes to the upper right hand portion displaying the beautiful Keira Knightley. Something about setting a fashion statement for her upcoming movie.But in selling papers or anything for that matter, sex sells. So you can see why USA TODAY is NO. 1,because it’s got sports and sexy starlets on the first corners of the page. A date is sprawled and underlined underneath with the definitions of the various section pertaining to News,Money,Sports, and Life. Very valuable topics which should be addressed due to their pertinence in every ones daily lives. Their is a chart on various gas prices in comparison to Regular, Mid, and Premium. In American society we are taught to read left to right. But with the display of the picture certain pictorials and articles will grab your attention. Because the paper is clearly folded on my lap as I write this, the top story which is placed right below the title has in the largest font and darkest print Markets in turmoil.
Surprisingly the first placement I was looking for were the advertisements. Without them the paper does not collect on seventy-five cents a paper only. They strive on advertisements which usually bog down pages and articles. But on this first page their is relatively few. Many are hidden underneath in logos with the brand ABC or scrolling the bottom. The sports teams which receive the most attention like the Yankees must benefit from their exposure on the front page. What about the Keira Knightly movie the Duchess(product placement) which is discussed in 1D.Are Hollywood agencies paying the papers for this exposure?
Open up the front page like a nude woman pictorial and I must grip the rest of the articles before they slide between my fingers. The pages are grainy and thick, so they can better hold the ink and prevent bleeding. The pages are course and ripe with textures from the print. With a defiant thumb I can barely smudge the words on print, and leave very little stain on my finger tips.Sifting through the course pages I discover seven holes punctured through each page.Probably for the packaging the papers are strung together. The papers overall weight is relatively heaver then that of the Press due to more substantial articles.
That definitive whiff of the paper is most pleasing . The smell of a new book which spine has just been split.Or perhaps that moldy basement smell, where the ghouls hide out in the shadows to claim you as you reach for a beer in the fridge. Perhaps its the life-force of print;ink. It’s a black blood which streaks across the front page in the caption titled just below the top story Ike expands reach, havoc.The photgraph is the largest on the front page, it shows a middle-aged man carrying at least two whole boxes of water with ice stacked on top. Many other citizens are carrying boxes of supplies and are all wearing sandals as they wade out the Ike brewing in Texas.
Being an avid football fan I wish to acquire news on the performance of New England’s backup quarterback Matt Cassel and his performance against their rivals the Jets. So from observing the small picture of Derek Jeter and A-Rod in the upper left I know that all sports on page 1C. So by thumbing through the paper, in the upper right-hand corner I can see both the current date and title of the paper. Also the last bit of information is set as a directory or code to help navigate through the paper. Simple enough the code is arranged alphabetically and numerically. 3A will always come before 1C and so forth. So by thumbing though I reach past 7B and observe some faces of NFL coaches on 1C, as an indicator I’m in the right spot. In the upper left they categorize the sports with stats of previous games and games that will be played during that day. This time I open up the paper in a more horizontal fashion like my familiar Bristol Press. Inside in the bottom left hand corner I see a comparison to backup quarterback Matt Cassel and Tom Brady. Interestingly enough they have very familiar sayings in both stats and quotes at the end of their first game as starters for New England(phew).
So I folded the sports piece back into it’s place while I leaned back into my chair next to my laptop waiting for the next discovery of news which is really only one tab away from my blog. But how can a newspaper so relatively close and accessible be in fact so radically different then the one materialized in front of me? Can the full experience of the newspaper be altered forever in the world of digital information streaming,updating and processing faster then any form of print. My children will sit and be spoon-fed digital streaming news at their fingerprints without getting a smudge a ink on their thumbs, but at what cost? Will these newspapers be but mere tomes faded from breakfast tables quietly observed sitting on our father’s lap as our society has moved on.
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