And speaking of change

Like you, I start the day reading news. Years ago it used to be the newspaper. Now I just read the blogs.
Quite frankly, I don't see how newspapers or weekly news magazines are going to survive.

I commented on the issue of the death of newspapers (more generally) in my blog recently (HTTP://)

community.beliefnet.com/blogs/5720

My daily reads include Townhall (columns, conservative), RealClearPolitics (ditto, but a mix) HuffPo (which increasingly makes me nauseous), NRO (columns AND blogs), and of course, Crunchy Con. I'm embarrassed to say, I barely read "straight news" anymore, but get it mostly from cable news stations, then rush off to see what my favorite columnists are saying about it! Some of those include Rod, Jonah Goldberg, Mark Steyn, David Brooks, George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Kathleen Parker, Star Parker, Paul Greenberg. These are all fairly conservative columnists, working for mainstream pubs (though I read them all online, not in print). As for print, I read Time, Newsweek, World, Touchstone, The Sun... a pretty mixed bag with thinkers from both sides. And I read my daily paper here in Beaufort, SC, mainly for local news.

I don't do straight news anymore, except to read the local online paper. What's the point? Nothing new ever happens, I swear I could read last week's paper or even last year's paper and never even notice. The media sucks.

Exception: I do Drudge and RealClear once in a while, but always feel guilty.

Otherwise, I just read bloggers. Regular reads (in order):

Steve Sailer
Rod Dreher
Et-Tu Jen
Mark Steyn
Ross Douthat

I drop by once every few weeks (again in order) to Deenen, AmScene, Gordon, Knustler, Oil Drum, Doman, Maclin, GNXP, Catholic Exchange, Zmirk, Kaus, Saletan, Kellmeyer, Dieterich.

And thanks for doing this blog! It is commentators like you who allow me to simply ignore the news and yet not miss anything of substance. Y'all do the dirty work :-).

Quite agreed that setting up a good RSS reader (like Google Reader) is unsurpassed for efficiency - seeing those bars glow when updated is itself a rush.

Since I'd go even goofier than usual were I one of Michael Blowhard's PPPs (Primarily Political People), my feed-reader is heavy on the English books pages (dailies, Sundays, TLS and LRB), BBC headlines, science and health sections, obits (an English specialty: Hugh Massingberd at the Telegraph, RIP), the Yahoo! and Reuters Odd-News links for lighter-side relief, and the New Yorker and NYROB for more longform stuff.

For politics, I skip all the party-line talking-points agitprop and cocked-hat cookie-cutter punditry, and look for fierce independence, humor, broad culture, and some artistry in words: Sully and Rod, Rick Hertzberg at The New Yorker, Kenneth Anderson's Law of War blog (if only he wrote more!), The Tory Anarchist (Dan McCarthy), BK Marcus for Austrian econ/humor. Among NYT pundits, I find Frank Rich on Sundays easily the best of an otherwise dreary lot (did you see Dowd's latest Z-grade teabag on her inner "Karma chameleon?"...Christ!): the ex-drama critic in Rich knits diversely gathered threads from across our culture and politics both into well-paced and plotted stories that routinely cock a snook at received wisdom from both major parties - and especially the justly-damned "mainstream media" pack mentality. And if the NYT runs anything really outta the park columnwise or elsewhere (like Mark "Minimalist" Bittman's groundbreaking No-Knead Bread recipe), it'll reach me anyway more often than not, via a feed from the paper's Most-Emailed list.

As for political TV: not for grownups - save for BookTV on C-SPAN weekends. Same for radio: thanks to XM and global web radio, I've discovered, e.g., more thrilling Canadian indie bands, and African soukous artists, these last six months such that I don't miss my old NPR habit in the slightest.

Regarding the rising tide afforded by new-media habits compared to their outclassed dinosaurs in the shrinking ghettoes of old, I have to echo the poker-voiced announcer on the new Burger King spots summing up the Whopper: anything else is a freakin' disappointment...

I don't read any other blogs but yours, Mr Dreher. You are a special case: I enjoyed your book so much, that I landed here, and you hooked me with this nice collection of civil and clear-thinking people.

I have no time for blogs. Those things which you highlight as advantages are disadvantages from my viewpoint. Posts multiply quickly, opinions spin off them in comboxes, clarifications and additions are added, all at lightning speed. I have at most, two hours a day to be fiddling around online. And that's too much, for it means I am neglecting prayer, or working out, or sleep, none of which I can do without when faced with the prospect of 11 more months of 12 hour days, seven days a week. I need my news concentrated and very dense.

I read a few articles from the NYT nearly every day. I also enjoy the Economist. I mainly read the international news, and the health, science, and education features in those two periodicals. When I'm back home I usually have NPR on in the background.

We have a compendium of news available on our intranet at work. It's a long list from various papers about current events in government, international, and military affairs, which is posted for everyone's "professional development." I can access articles from most major newspapers, including a nice selection from around the world, and a few news magazines. I can access a few subscription mags and papers for free, like the New Scientist. But again, these sources are for "professional development" so no entertainment, culture, hobby, or religion periodicals or mags. And it's all text only.

Don't tell my boss, but I typically spend the first hour of every day caffeinating and "catching up." (The articles are always at least 12 hours old!) Well, Boss is probably sneakily doing the same thing in his corner.

What's interesting about a deployment from a media standpoint is you drop out of the consumerist culture. Our lives are unfathomable to everyone today but those who have lived in a socialist country or monastery. You can go online and get your fix and buy useless things, but you have to seek it out.

There are no commercials on our five military-provided TV stations. There are no political ads. None. What we know about the candidates we either look up online, or hear from actual spots on the stations or in the debates.

The news channel alternates between the morning shows, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, and the evening shows. It literally is fair and balanced. The entertainment channel shows each of the evening comedy shows, and things like the Simpsons and Family Guy, edited to cable-level content. There's a movie channel, and a sports channel. Then there's the Pentagon channel, which you can only take in small doses. There's some audio channels above that on the dial, and some local Iraqi stations which don't come in very clearly without an antenna.

Where there would be commercials, we get cheerful reminders to check our fire alarms, eat well, seek out spiritual or psychological counseling when needed, to report fraudwasteandabuse, not to sexually harrass our comrades, to never shake a baby, to "maintain tactical safety," to keep faith with our oaths if we are ever captured by the enemy, to prevent the spread of communicable diseases by good hygiene, to respect officers appointed over us and elected officials (with dire warnings of judicial consequences if we do not) and teasingly enough for us deployed forward, reminders to enjoy the cultural and recreational offerings of Europe - the channels are broadcast from there. We also get the Foundation for a Better Life ad spots, which are a nice break. And lots of pastiches of soldiers, airman, Marines, sailors, and the odd coastguardsman in front of flags and screaming eagles and historical battles and other patriotic themes.

There is only one store, the Post Exchange, which has not even managed to stock sugar or coffee lately (!) and is surrounded by trailers which house an off-brand coffee shop, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Burger King, a barber's, an AT and T phone home center, and a few other oddments. Iraqis sell us cheap watches, rugs, jewelry, and DVDs of suspicious origin.

That's all we've got for commercialism and consumerism. You can't exactly out-style each other either, since everyone wears the same clothes. Conformity is the rule. The most you can manage is a quirky pair of eyeglasses, a super cool weapons sling, or maybe a big shiny watch. The more daring among us play at the very edges of acceptable hairstyles.

It's funny, but I miss some of this when I am home. Life is simpler here. You can focus better without a barrage of people trying to sell you something 24 hours a day.

I also miss my cargo pockets when not in uniform. It is amazing what you can fit in them.

Sorry for the long post. I hope some of you find it interesting.

Thanks for your post, anotherbeliever. And thanks for your service. May God bless and preserve you and your comrades-in-arms. BTW, having spent a bit of time in a monastery, I can relate; coming back into the world after days spent in relative silence and in prayer is weirdly disorienting. Commericial noise, especially, seems noisier and futile. News? Almost all online. The local rag (The Oregonian) is simultaneously enamored with Mammon and Gaia, and the networks are all the same, every day. Maybe those monks are on to something.

Interesting post, Rod.

I actually started reading more mainstream newspapers' online editions during my brief guest-blogging stint here. Like you, I generally prefer to read bloggers' commentary instead of op-eds from the establishment sources, but I did find it convenient to skim the news and comments from several large media organizations before making my lists of potential blog items each morning (which would then be pared down and altered during the course of the day; I still think of the "Korean 'boot camp' for kids who are online too much" story as "the blog post that got away," since I never did manage to work that one in).

At the time, Rod, I wondered if you got to "skip" some portion of that process partly by being a lot more plugged in, via the DMN, to the eddies and currents of daily news events than someone who isn't in the media might be--not that you don't still gather your blog materials from a whole host of different places, but that some of what you do is so much a part of a journalist's world that you're not consciously aware of how much information you're absorbing.

There's no question that blogs have changed things, and when it comes to political commentary, I think, for the better--instead of sticking around for ABC's talking heads after the recent debates, for instance, it was possible to come here and elsewhere to get quick and insightful analysis and up-to-the-minute discussions of how things were going.

Kim M, as promised, I deleted your comment over your consistent pattern of bringing up anti-Israel commentary in every thread. As I promised before, I will delete every one of your comments that do this. Every other person on this blog manages to keep his or her comments relevant to the thread at hand. You should too.

I look at my favorite bloggers -- you, Vox Day, and a quick scan of the posts at the Corner. I find most newspaper editorializing and the bulk of the blogosphere more interested in partisanship than in really addressing the issues.

As a guy who just left radio broadcasting after 15 years for something a little more stable, a bit of research caught my attention last year that portends even more changes in the way people use media: Arbitron diary respondents (radio's equivalent of Nielsen families) under the age of 45 rated the Internet the "most essential" medium in their lives, ahead of TV, radio, and newspaper, in that order. Newspaper was "most essential" to something like 6% of Americans under 45 -- but the percentage wasn't much higher when their elders were included in the data.