Front Page or Favorite Section?

I don’t know how many people still buy a paper newspaper. Only one of my students uses one for current events; the rest use digital resources. Me, I still like the papers; I find it hard to do the Sudoku and the crossword on digital screens. I know there are people who do, but I’m not one of them.

I was thinking about newspapers today and wondered how many people look to see what’s on the front page. Do they look first, or do they head for their favorite section – the comics, the sports, the obituaries – first? What’s the point of writing a good headline if nobody reads it?

Come to think of it, this may explain why the editing of our local paper has gone downhill. Perhaps if more people complained they’d start fixing glaring errors. Then again, I’m assuming the average reader would know a grammatical error when they read one.

And as I thought on newspapers I thought about blogging. We spend a fair amount of time tweaking our online presence. We choose a layout, design menus, tweak widgets, write pages – but what if nobody reads them?

I know I’m guilty of only looking through the WordPress Reader. I can’t remember the last time I checked out a blog’s home page – or any page other than the “About” page, for that matter. I’m resolving to change that deficiency. I’m going to start looking at the homepages and exploring the sites others have put their hard work into creating.

After all, I expect them to do the same for me.

8 thoughts on “Front Page or Favorite Section?”

    1. Thank you; are you reading on mobile? I think this theme’s mobile view is far superior to what I was using. Also, I found that eliminating the sidebar widgets and moving my favorite ones to the bottom gives a wider and cleaner look.

      Thanks again for the feedback!

      Liked by 1 person

  2. As a reporter for a small weekly print newspaper, surprisingly enough, it is still important to be accurate in facts and grammar. If it is a good headline, they’ll read it. That’s the goal anyway. This goes for anything we do online as well. Just had to deal with a situation where something the paper posted last night had a number of typos and had to be corrected this morning. Trust me – people have no problem with bringing to light any errors that are made. This particular paper that I work for consists of me and an editor…that’s it and sometimes as hard as we try, things fall through the cracks. This job is harder than more people know and more people are happy to complain about us without a second thought of the effort that’s gone into it. Though, glaring mistakes shouldn’t be happening so it’s sad to hear that the local publication where you’re at seems to be having those difficulties. As for the time element you’re referring to, I agree that people frequently don’t take much time to even read a full story let alone fully looking through a website. Time is used and/or wasted so differently now than it used to be. We think that taking even just five minutes out of our day is SOOO much but it really isn’t. We just need to use the time we do have more carefully. I know, I’m one of those constantly saying I don’t have enough time lol when really it’s only because I’m not using it wisely. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Wow, didn’t know I’d strike such a cord! I understand the work needed to produce a print newspaper; my grandmother was a newspaperwoman for many years.

      In the last year, our local paper has become quite the source of “how not to write” examples for my English teacher colleague. Misspellings, comma splices, and subject-verb agreement are the most common offenders.

      THANK YOU so much for taking the time to respond in such a clear manner.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. LOL it wasn’t so much you it’s just interesting timing – kinda fuming mad over here about some crap I’ve been dealing with so if my comment came off as pointed, let me apologize now. I did think my timing of reading the article on such a day was fascinating haha but no anger was meant to be directed toward you or even this post. I think most of what you had to say is pertinent. Again, I agree that it’s unfortunate that the editing portion of that paper has taken such a hit. That’s not good. I know I should take a timeout and review some of my own grammar as my tiredness, hurriedness and just flat forgetting some rules have snuck their way into my writing (sadly and my editor has no problem with calling me out on it lol ugh). It’s kind of amazing how when you just get going with something you take certain information for granted and honestly, at least for me and writing goes, I’m not all that careful at times and so perhaps my own grammar needs a bit of help because I’ve slipped some. I’m not so far gone that it’s not legible. Actually, most times my problem is my brain is faster than my fingers and so my sentences end up jumbled because I may have changed direction mid-sentence and forgot to edit it. 🙂 Thank God for editors huh?

        Liked by 1 person

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