Staff Blog
“A spirit wandering,” and the Sunday paper
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Two purposes to this post: One is to call attention to this excellent, sad story by Kia Gregory, about a suburban kid who became a drifter and wound up murdered on the roof of a high-rise apartment building in West Philly.
The other is to note that I almost missed it. I'm a regular reader of both the Inquirer and the Daily News. But my routine is to come in to the office and read the news sections of both on Philly.com. I prefer not to sit with my computer quite the same way on weekend mornings, if I'm not working (because it feels like work). And this has got me wondering: Of the many (many, many) things newspapers need to think about adjusting to better serve online readers, is one of them the tradition of publishing big stories on Sundays? The practice comes from an era when people used to settle down for a leisurely read on Sunday morning. But on the web, my sense is, the weekend is down-time (I could certainly be wrong about this — I have done exactly no research). Is publishing on Sunday really still the way for newspapers to get their best stories maximum exposure — in terms of readership, blogs linking, etc.? Do you read online on Sunday morning?
When I was a little kid, reading the Sunday paper was the highlight of my week (yay dorkiness!), but now with every weekday saturated with computer-related work, it’s a relief to just let go of online news during the weekend. (Which is not to say I don’t check the Clog, but that’s about it
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The Sunday Inky always has a handful of good reads and is worth my $1.40 (or however much they charge for delivery) to read in bed. It’s one day I can devote a half hour to reading the actual paper.
Yes, I still do the Sunday morning newspaper-reading thing, and really value the time. I have to say though that most of that time is spent with the NYTimes rather than the Inky. We have both home delivery and Google Reader options, and I don’t mind using the computer at home to read, though I hear what you’re saying about it feeling like work.
Sunday is the only day when I will avoid the computer for news and go out to pick up a paper, be it the Inquirer or the NY Times. My perfect Sunday morning involves the paper, coffee, and CBS Sunday Morning. You’d think I was 85 years old.
I must disagree with your assessment of this story as “excellent.”
To me, it is a perfect example of the decline in journalistic quality at the Inquirer.
The piece reads as a “Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be squatters” scare piece (while ignoring the positive aspects of this vibrant Philadelphia subculture).
But I was most offended by the article’s slap-dash feel. Could the Kia Gregory’s attempt to weave the two narratives of killer and victim together be any more forced? The “Another man’s search” segment was inserted with the subtlety of a Mummer’s parade and only the weakest of transitional statements.
And the addendum about hobos from some guy nicknamed “Oats” who references the Civil War was about as relevant as John Hodgman’s hilarious research on hobos.
To answer your other question, I read a physical newspaper on Sunday, but its not the StInquirer.