I should preface this by noting that I have a love for many old man things (or things perceived to be for an old man like cigars, smoking slippers, the color forest green, plaid, scotch, and historical non-fiction books usually featuring finance or a political figure), and that perhaps this is part of the reason I love the experience of reading a newspaper so much.
The Sunday paper got me
It all started sort of accidentally, when a couple of years ago I went to my neighbourhood Starbucks for coffee and noticed a very large Sunday edition of The New York Times near the register. I’m not exactly sure why on that day I decided to purchase it, perhaps I was keen to read the news or just keen for something to read, but I purchased it and sat down in a window seat for some quiet paper and coffee time. That morning was so wonderful and gratifying that it became a Sunday morning Starbucks ritual: a grande Pike and a Sunday NYT. These days the ritual lives, but the coffee is french pressed at home and the paper delivered. Unless we’re travelling, and then the paper is sourced and the coffee usually room service. Like this, this, and this.
The Sunday edition is not for the faint of heart. It’s heavy, it has the most sections of any day of the week and usually comes with two magazines: The New York Times Magazine and T Magazine, which is all about design and fashion. My favorite sections are the Front Page, Business, and Style sections, and lately I’ll start with Style so as to ease myself into the hard news. Specifically, I start with the wedding pages, I just love the love stories.
Accountability in print
This afternoon I took my pup for a stroll across downtown San Francisco, from Hayes Valley over to the shopping district at Union and Fillmore Street. We happened upon a shop I’d never seen before, completely dedicated to newspapers and magazines, with a nice assortment of greeting cards and notebooks in the corner. I adore shops like this, shops that are clearly owned by passionate people who believe wholeheartedly in the goodness of a particular product. In this case, the owner of this store, Mo, was very clearly passionate about delivering the news in all shapes and forms, as well as the evolution of pop culture. He asked me what I usually read and as I listed off the titles of my preferred publications he listened and gave me a little nod of approval. It was a nice human experience, to connect over traditional print publications, and one that I’m finding more and more as I notice a greater public commitment to newspapers. Maybe we’re tired of staring at screens. Phone fatigue, surely that is a thing. Newspapers are an experience, while phones don’t really satisfy in the same way.
The thing about print is that unlike digital publishing, you must include your name; a piece is not without an author or written anonymously. There is integrity in authors being listed and sources properly included. Essentially, with print, there is little to no room for “fake news.”
Well, save for tabloids, but I wouldn’t include those as journalism.
Side bar: “fake news” is the actual fake stuff people conjure up to support their narrative and then flood the internet with in an effort to sway public opinion. Fake news is not journalism based on facts that simply does not align with your narrative.
The experience
When you sit down with a paper, you have yourself a thoughtfully curated collection of timely and (usually, mostly) well-written articles from an array of perspectives. The articles are just the right length that you can get through a handful in a reasonable amount of time and feel like you have a good understanding of each topic.
With op-eds, you get a window into the writers’ experiences and lives and color that broadens the picture of their perspectives. These pieces often help me to understand a different human experience, adding context to their opinion and to a larger cultural discussion, like this piece from Frank Bruni, a New York Times writer, about what it’s like to have an opinion as a (gay) white man today.
Then there’s the physical experience of the too-large paper that doesn’t easily fold and makes a fair amount of noise as you work to origami the thing into a comfortable shape. Great for cafes, hideous for airplanes. I’ve pissed off a few neighbours with a good newspaper.
It’s a tangible experience that leaves your fingers lightly and artfully smudged as only a newspaper can with their soft, messy ink. It gets everywhere, like the sleeve of your sweater if you choose to tuck a paper under your arm.
I’m not just about pairing my paper with coffee, wine makes a great accompaniment too, as seen above in this picture snapped at Manhattan’s infamous Carlyle Hotel in their beautiful (and highly recommended) Gallery. I’d also like to note that my newspaper pictures are never staged, these photos depict what I am / we are actually doing. I hope you enjoy them!
Warm, fuzzy newspaper vibes
There’s something very charming about newspapers; the traditional font, the styling and organizing of articles, the candid photographs, headlines of just a few words that tell a story within themselves, and the many people you know it took to bring that daily paper to your hands.
As with magazines, I have a very hard time throwing a paper away (recycling). For me, it feels like I’m tossing a piece of art and I feel guilty over it. This explains why I’ll hold onto papers for days and weeks at a time. I recently posted an instagram story about this, my apartment had newspapers piled on every surface. I just love them.
If you’re interested, my two preferred papers are The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, and we subscribe to the NYT. I hope to add The Financial Times to that list sometime soon, but two papers has me pretty consumed at the moment.
Like reading the newspaper too? What are your favorites? I’d love to see. Tag @thepaperandcoffee on instagram.
Happy reading!
