Read All About It

I almost did the unthinkable the other day. I almost canceled my last daily newspaper subscription. I didn't stop delivery of the San Jose Mercury-News; but I seriously considered it. I found myself staring at the renewal notice and wondering if it was really worth the money.

I can't think of a time in my adult life when I didn't subscribe to at least one daily newspaper. There have been long periods when I subscribed to two daily papers. For a while we even had three papers delivered to the house every day. After spending about 15 years in the newspaper business, being an editor will always be part of my self identity.

I gave up my subscription to the Santa Cruz Sentinel when I moved back to Aromas. It was an easy decision because, to be frank, the Sentinel has become a terrible product. The Sentinel has never been a great paper, but it was usually at least mediocre, with some very good aspects -- I've always like Wally Baine's columns and the photography was pretty good. And, while the coverage was shallow, it was at least broad enough that I had a general idea what was going on in the community. But when the Ottaway group sold the paper to Media News, the paper went to awful with hardly stopping at bad.

The Mercury is following the same sad arc. Since its sale from Knight-Ridder to Media News, the Merc has lost news hole and gravitas. It's diminished in size and influence.

I've gotten into the habit of cruising the online version of the Sentinel -- 10 or 15 minutes is all I really need. Then I peruse the paper version of the Merc. But I find I only read the Sports section -- and that's mostly because of the late scores. As for the rest: the state, national and international news, I've already read most of it online before I went to bed the night before.

Some of my favorite sources are Internet versions of traditional newspapers such as the Washington Post and New York Times. But a lot of my information comes from blogs that I check every day. My reading list is at the bottom of the page. Check it out and you can see what important to me: politics, sports and beer -- not necessarily in that order. (By the way, I would be interested in your favorite blogs. Hit the comment button and let us all know what we should be reading.)

I know I'm kind of late to the party. Casey and Tim and most of their friends get all of their current events online. I doubt that Casey reads one newspaper a year and she is well informed. So, I am willing to admit that online news has a lot to offer. But I'm not giving up my newspaper until it's pried from cold , ink-stained fingers.