h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In newspapers, the lackeys of multimillionaires tell you what to think. And you have to pay for the privillege.

But that's all outweighed by the experience which is chips wrapped in real newspapers.
Have you noticed that the only interesting articles in newspapers are,
1) The ones you can only read part of on a bag of chips.
2) One written on a sheet you've just started tipping the ash from your coal fire onto.
3) Whatever the person sitting next to you is trying to read.

With your basic small-town or university newspaper, another fun game is spotting all spelling and hidieous grammr mistakes these supposed high school-graduate editors make. Using tequila shots or articles of clothing as markers can make for quite an evening.

Some years ago, I remember lots of clever pundits telling us that computers would eventually render newspapers redundant.

That's rubbish... I tried it last week and got vinegar and chip fat all over my laptop !

I'd say you need to upgrade your laptop. Have you tried uninstalling the fish, then the chips, and then calling Chip Shop Tech Support?

My gran says they used to cut the newspapers up into squares and use it as toilet paper. Sounds like a good idea for some of the current publications calling themselves "News"papers. Mind you having someone else's crap all over your bum is probably not good news.

That's what all the alien anal probing is about. The aliens are using black bum stains to tell our age. It is probably less problematic than sawing us in half to count the rings.

If you prefer contemplation of topical affairs to checking out your "bumstains," there are few pleasures equal to a combination of the Sunday Post and an All American Breakfast, (for which you should feel free to substitute the British counterpart if you prefer.) "Rich men" may write the news or control what is written, but there is no control upon the reader's capacity to disagree... You might want to try shouting "bumstain!" whenever you think you've found a particularly offensive passage. Not only will it improve your capacity to engage in social and political discourse, but if you leave the window open next to the breakfast table, just think what the exercise will do for your reputation in the neighborhood.

"BUMSTAIN!" I worked with a fellow, who was convinced, due to faulty digestion of two loosely related news stories, that a hapless Russian was lost in orbit around Venus. This fellow who drives a car and dresses himself and pays his bills is what newspaper barons use to turn your vote into a bumstain.

While he's orbiting around Venus, it strikes me that you might have more of a problem with the Gentle Reader than the "rich" fellow who paid to provide the stories that ol'GR confused. And he'd manage to mess up your vote with or without the morning paper.

True. But the difference a newspaper's bias makes is the difference between random confusion and deliberate misdirection. To put it another way: we may all be political zombies who cast our votes like dandelion seeds (to mix a metaphor); but, if left to chance, as many votes are likely to support the "intelligent" voter as are likely to thwart him/her.

I don't mean to suggest that newspapers are tools of evil (necessarily); only that they are powerful tools that inevitably show a bias, to some extent, towards the political views of their publishers. This is as evident in the way they treat labour issues as in election coverage.

i disagree with researcher!
we all are our own editors!
newspapers only gives people one way or side of a story!
it is up to us to find out the other side!