News bath, part 1

Years ago (like, pre-Internet, totally Paleolithic, man), Frank Zappa gave an interview to the writer Jon Winokur in which he described his daily "news bath":

I've got it down to a science: at 4:30 on Channel 34, which is the Discovery Channel, you tape Christian Science Monitor; then you switch over to CNN at 5:00 and watch Bernard Shaw make a fool of himself for a little while; then you switch to the local CBS news and hope to see Michael Tuck, who does the most outrageous things on the air. But the fun really starts at 6:30, when you go to Channel 7 to get the very beginning of Peter Jennings and ABC News to find out what their lead story is and start taping that; while the tape is running, immediately flip over to Channel 2 to see what the lead story is going to be on CBS. The way the commercials are staggered on the 6:30 news, if you start with the ABC News you can get the first big chunk before the commercials start. Then, when Jennings goes to a commercial, you immediately switch over to CBS.

You skip NBC at this point because Brokaw hardly ever has anything interesting or competitive with the stories on the other networks. You go directly to Channel 2 and pick up another three minutes of news before *they* go to a commercial. At that point you have to decide whether to give Brokaw his riff or go back to Jennings. You ping-pong back and forth like that, ending up on Channel 7 because their news goes longer than the CBS News. When that half-hour block is over you flip it to Channel 6 for the tail end of MacNeil/Lehrer. And when they're done you go back to CNN.

That had to be 20 years ago; most of those people have moved on or died. But I've always remembered the phrase "news bath," because it's so apt. Here's my morning news bath, usually taken with a cup of coffee in one hand before I take my real bath (which is, to be honest, a shower -- but a "news shower" just doesn't have that zing or that ring):

1.  Check The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times for headlines. The big three. Open any interesting-looking stories in another window for later skimming/reading.

2.  Peek at the Houston Chronicle, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Jose Mercury News. If there isn't at least one intriguing story on the front page of each of 'em, it's a bad news bath.

3.  Open the New York Post to see what they're on about now. (Silently wish that some of the more "prestigious" papers would emulate the Post's hyper-engaged, hyper-local style.)

4.  On to The Oregonian and the New Orleans Times-Picayune, which have similar outdated websites produced by the same company. (Reflect on the fact that I'd read more of both if the sites weren't so illogically convoluted.) Be sure to read the front page of the O and the metro and opinion sections of the T-P, since that's where all the action is. If there's something really brewin' in New Orleans, skip over to WWL-TV, the website of the city's CBS station.

5.  Hit the online-only news sources: my customized Google News page, Jim Romenesko's gossipy, informative Medianews; morning media updates at Mediabistro; Kevin Roderick's indispensable LA Observed (a model for what every alternative paper in the country should be doing, but isn't); Today's Front Pages, scans of the actual front pages from hundreds of newspapers around the world; and the increasingly dispensable Drudge Report. And, if there's time: Eat the Press.

(Bookmarked, but not bathed in: CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, USA Today, and a few others.)

Coming up later: my daily blog bath.

Do you have a news bath? What's yours?

Comments

[retreadranger]

Interesting! And I thought I was a crazed news junkie.

My big three are the NY Times, the Washington Post, and (Long Island) Newsday... that last my old hometown paper, with which I have a longstanding love-hate relationship.

Next, the San Francisco Chronicle, Arts and Letters Daily (aggregator) and ... though I keep swearing off it ... Salon.

Then to one or more nearby regionals: the Duluth News Tribune, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, or the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. I may skip these several days running if there's nothing gripping going on.

Time now for frivolity: Metadish for gossip, MyDeathSpace to check for any truly bizarre exits, and Little Green Footballs, to see which Charles Johnson will be on display today- the keen-eyed observer of media bias, the frothing Bushite Neanderthal, or the boring bicyclist.

By this point, Obscure Store will have updated its daily handful of bizarre news items and old people driving into buildings, and the National Park Service Morning Report will be up.

With all that out of the way, I can turn my attention to Fark.com, which will piss away the rest of my morning... at least until it's time to attend to other matters in a different room of the house. (And there we see one advantage the dead-tree versions had over reading news on-line.)

[Kevin]

Fark.com? That's interesting. I don't give a rip about geek stuff or science fiction - both of which seem to be its bread and its EVOO - but I'll check it out again and see if my judgment was too snap.

[retreadranger]

You must be thinking of a different site- Fark is another weird news aggregator... think "Obscure Store" on steroids. Interesting business model: content is submitted by the users and this fellow Drew rides herd and collects advertising bucks. Wish I'd thought of it first!

[Kevin]

I just checked it, and you're right, of course - it is like a user-generated Obscure Store. Maybe I'd hit it on a bad day.

Great - an even longer news bath, coming up!