Why I Still Read the Paper-paper 39

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I still read the paper-paper, you know, the one that you turn pages to read.



  • Because I don’t know what I need to know or always want to know and therefore like to scan the various sections of the paper;
  • Because the home page on the web is too cluttered with info and ads that assaults me with info unrelated to news and human-interest stories;
  • Because every new page you go to online features different ads (more than in the paper);
  • Because some of the most interesting info is in tiny little columns that aren’t posted on the website;
  • Because the paper-paper is portable and great to have with me when I’m writing the T, or early for a meeting, or stuck in a line;
  • Because the on-line paper forces me to view a commercial before I can get to the video I’m angling to see;
  • Because the comics I like are not on line;
  • Because the letters to the editor (that I often find illuminating) are not online.

I am not anti newspapers on-line.  They have their place and are clearly here to stay.  I do like  the videos I’ve seen posted in the Globe.  (These videos are added value, like a dessert to me, they are not the main course or the “meat” of the story).  On-line doesn’t replicate or equal the joy of turning each page of a paper. scanning the headlines and sidebars.  I’ve made so many discoveries in those page-by-page, section-by-section scans.  I do like the convenience of being able to email a story that I’ve read in the paper-paper although, I’ve learned recently, some of the columnist withhold some of their articles from the web.

I don’t think this affinity for the paper-paper has anything to do with my age but rather with my joy for reading and for discovering things in the more slow, deliberate, tactile medium that paper provides.  Maybe I’ll start a slow-read movement.  When I’m out-of-town, my husband actually saves the paper for me because I will go through each paper to see what I’ve missed – especially the local stories that don’t make the news nationally.  It is important to have news about the local scene – a point driven home to me when researching the busing crisis in Boston recently.  It was crucial that there was a local paper, the Boston Banner, to give the stories of the Black parents whose voices were largely missing from the daily papers.

And yes, I do recycle, faithfully.

About Candelaria Silva

Candelaria Silva-Collins is a marketing, community outreach and programming consultant; writer; and trainer/facilitator who lives in Boston, Massachusetts. She has designed and facilitated workshops on a wide variety of topics including communication, facilitation, job search skills, team building, and parenting issues. She currently coordinates the Community Membership Program of the Huntington Theatre Company. Her work as Director of ACT Roxbury was profiled in several publications, including The Creative Communities Builders Handbook. Candelaria’s children’s stories, short stories, essays and reviews have been published in local and national publications and she is an active blogger. Her publications include the booklets, Handling Rejection; Pushing through Shyness: Networking Tips when You’re Shy, Slow to Warm Up or Just don’t Feel you Belong; and Real Questions about Sex & Relationships for Teens: A Discussion Guide for Parents. She has served on the boards of Goddard College, Wheelock Family Theatre, Boston Foundation for Architecture, and Discover Roxbury. She is currently Chair, Designators of the Henderson Foundation.

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