Who Writes This Crap Anyway?

I read my news online. I can't remember the last time I picked up an actual, honest-to-goodnes, real live, big name newspaper. Sure, we get the local paper delivered for free, but I can't honestly say that I read it. The San Francisco Chronicle used to be my newspaper of choice back when I was in college...like two decades ago (cough); but even now, I read that online.

While I have some fond memories of reading the morning paper with my morning coffee, I can honestly say that in this case I prefer online news reading for a couple of reasons: instant variety and reader comments. With just a few clicks of the mouse I can go from reading the SF Chronicle to the New York Times to the Los Angeles Times and then over to the BBC with a final stop at the Onion. If I'm feeling really lazy, I head on over to the News section of All My Faves and just click the icons of my favorite news sources. Virtually no typing. All of this I can do in the same amount of time it would take to hunt down one newspaper, come home, and make some coffee. Seriously.

My second reason for preferring online news to print news has to be the reader comments, hands down. Sure, the newspapers have letters to the editor (yawn), but they can't compare to the instant off the cuff comments. Part of the fun for me is trying to pick out the trolls and the innocent folks who get their undies in a bundle and get sucked into the trolls' comments. I also like reading comments like, "Who writes this crap, anyway?" or "This is what passes for journalism these days?" Dude, if you didn't like the article, why did you bother taking the time to comment...unless of course, you didn't read it and you're trying to start something.

BTW - I like comments, too. And just in case you're wondering who writes the crap on this blog: I do. I write the crap on this blog.