Topic: The Morning Call

I read the newspaper (mostly occasionally--I used to be a dedicated daily reader, just because, but then school rolled around. I could see myself getting back into it this summer, though). I know this puts me in a unique category of people--one that not only consists of people that have time to read but one that encompasses the people that have time to read and choose to read the newspaper, and not just any newspaper, but The Morning Call. I hate The Morning Call, but it's what my parents get, and I don't want to purchase my own several-hundred-dollar subscription to The New York Times or something pretentious like that. The irony here is that while my parents refuse to subscribe to another newspaper, they are well aware that I am the only person in my family that bothers to open it, let alone read it.

Anyway, The Morning Call only reports on local things. For world news, they've got a "Nation/World Snapshot" section with mini-paragraphs usually from the Associated Press. It's ridiculous. Recently they've re-done the paper and eliminated the Local section, which was pointless because the entire newspaper was a local section. An anecdote: In January, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the death of John Updike had made the front page. Wow, I thought, news that impacts that nation, right here, front and center! (Actually, the column was off to the right.) And then I read the article. John Updike made the front page because he was from Berks County and because he used Reading for the basis of a city he fictionalized in his novels. Major, major disappointment.

Last Sunday, though, after they'd revolutionized the layout and deleted the Local section, I found two actual articles on world news--not just "snapshots" or paragraphs. I'm not kidding when I say that this was the first time I had ever seen articles (even in the plural!) like this in The Morning Call. One was on Britain and how Gordon Brown is losing popularity with the citizens there and the other was on North Korea. I couldn't believe it. Maybe the layout change was just a starting point--maybe now they're realizing their customer base is so large that reporting solely on local happenings won't win them any new subscribers. Maybe. Hopefully.