With half the world and all of Washington D.C. on vacation—including the commander-in-chief, who will be summering on Martha’s Vineyard for a week starting on Sunday—we want to know if you plugged-in, media-addicted types welcome a chance to power down and disconnect from your various electronic devices, social networking sites, digital feeds and cable television loops — or if you just can’t stand to be disconnected from outside events. After all, as friends of reporters at The New York Times tell us, we are living in an increasingly digital-media-obsessed culture, and not being able to check your Twitter account before you brush your teeth in the morning puts a bad taste in some people’s mouths.
If, when vacationing, you do subject yourself to self-imposed news blackouts but still find yourself sneaking a peek at the news cycle, what is the one thing that you check out? Local newspapers? Your Twitter feed? The New York Times’s home page? HuffPo? Icanhascheezburger.com? What is your media guilty pleasure? Extra points for answering CJR.org.
Try never to logon on. Failing that, try never to go to sites other than sports. Never check email. NPR for 19 minutes per day. Burlington Free Press. Maybe Sunday Times.
Thaaaaaaaaat's all folks
#1 Posted by Michael Powell, CJR on Thu 20 Aug 2009 at 05:25 PM
If I get around to actually leaving the office this summer (the Internet, she don't take a vacation), I would gladly refrain from reading anything newsy except for baseball box scores.
#2 Posted by Justin Peters, CJR on Fri 21 Aug 2009 at 09:14 AM
I pick up the local paper and a New York Times or Wall Street Journal if they're around.
Going without for a week means a daunting pile to wade through when it's over.
#3 Posted by Ryan Chittum, CJR on Fri 21 Aug 2009 at 09:35 AM
Local papers, as many as I can find. I think I still have a copy of the eight-page, one-color tab published in Chokoloskee, Florida that I picked up about six years ago. It had a phenomenal article about wild panthers menacing local residents--including a vivid image of one of the animals leaning with its paws up against a chain link fence--at the bottom of the front page. some crime story beat it out for the lead.
#4 Posted by Greg Marx, CJR on Fri 21 Aug 2009 at 09:52 AM
Vacation these days usually means going home on the weekend to visit my parents at my childhood home in South Jersey and there I read my hometown newspaper, the Press of Atlantic City, with a special eye toward the colorful opinions on the editorial page, Voice of the People: http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/opinion/letters/. Other than that, I like pretending the rest of the world doesn't exist when it's the weekend so I ignore e-mail and the nagging feeling that I'm missing something important, and if I'm lucky I watch Meet the Press in the morning and tote the Sunday Times with me to the beach in the afternoon, both of which I consider a special treat and not distractions from my blissful obliviousness. Note: sunscreen plus newsprint and magazine ink do not mix.
#5 Posted by Ali Fenwick, CJR on Fri 21 Aug 2009 at 09:54 AM
I will unplug. No laptop is ever invited, and no smart phone. Don't want to know about it. But I revel in print—Times, Journal, and local papers, in a thorough way that I rarely have time to do otherwise. And books, good ones and bad ones, both are welcome guests.
#6 Posted by mike hoyt, CJR on Fri 21 Aug 2009 at 10:06 AM
I usually don't escape town without a lot of back issues of magazines stashed in my suitcase (or sometimes in a plastic grocery bag, on the overly optimistic theory that I'll make my way through them so quickly that a throw away parcel is the best bet).
I really enjoy reconnecting with All Things Considered and other NPR news programs, staples of my earlier car commuting life that I don’t listen to much now that I’m a straphanger. And on a similar note, when away I’ll buy a paper now and then—the print New York Times is a much more pleasant read when you don’t have to unfold it on the subway.
Blogs? Forget 'em; I go on vacation just so I don't have to stare at a computer.
#7 Posted by Clint Hendler, CJR on Fri 21 Aug 2009 at 10:45 AM
I can't resist checking my hideous Blackberry for email (news about me!). Otherwise, I sneak looks at the NYT, WP and WSJ, and always regret it. Advice: If you're going to unplug, try to go all the way, at least for a few days at a time.
#8 Posted by Dean Starkman, CJR on Fri 21 Aug 2009 at 01:50 PM
Local papers, if they're good. And particularly if they're alt-weeklies. Back issues of the New Yorker and NYRB. Books. The latest issue of -- yeah, I'll admit it -- US Weekly. All in print.
My media addictions don't stop while I'm on vacation -- much to the chagrin of my co-vacationers, unless they're fellow journalists -- but getting the fix in print, and actively avoiding getting online, makes for a good compromise. Like Nicorette for the media-addicted. .
#9 Posted by Megan Garber, CJR on Fri 21 Aug 2009 at 01:56 PM
Okay, I'll do it. I'll own it. I would keep twitter, but only if I'm able to follow the links. Otherwise, give me a serene New Yorker...or a pile of them.
#10 Posted by Josh Young, CJR on Fri 21 Aug 2009 at 05:35 PM
I have been following a story on the Blogosphere about how funds ended up among Liberal Alaskan Bloggers accounts came directly from the White House to smear former Governor Palin with fake ethical charges to bankrupt her and her family.
Or is enemies lists only supposed to be followed up during Republican Administrations?
CJR, influenced by The Nation magazine and the Huffington Post, is asleep at the wheel during a Liberal Administration.
http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2009/08/jesse-griffin-just-asking-questions.html
http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/search/label/Jesse%20Griffin
Where is MSNBC and CNN on this story? Where is Evan Thomas? Where are the shoe leather news reporters who "Speak Truth to Power?"
Oh, right, only during Republican Administration do they investigate corruption. After all, if the Nation magazine and the Huffington Post do not report it, it is not a story.
#11 Posted by JSF, CJR on Sat 22 Aug 2009 at 10:24 PM