The Press Newspaper

We’re subscribing to the Christchurch edition of a real live paper newspaper, The Press. Published six days a week (not Sunday), it has just about everything that we would hope for from a newspaper. The weather is consistently on the back page of the front section. Mark is able to keep up with much of the local happenings and catch his new favourite columnist, Joe Bennett, each Wednesday. William can still track the price of gold. Ben, Margaret, and Mom have a couple of comic strips that we find interesting. There’s enough of a smattering of U.S. and international news to keep us largely up to date. And, we find out where many of the good sales are. For example, today was “Frugal Friday” at the Pak ‘n’ Save (grocery store) in town where the prices of many items are slashed, and you only know when these are if you get the paper. Oh! Probably what we like best though is that the paper is printed on a broadsheet, which is very similar to what the Wall Street Journal is (or at least used to be) published on. It’s a newspaper that really feels and reads like a traditional newspaper, not a tabloid.

The paper gets delivered right next to our mailbox, about 4 metres from the front door. As you can see in this picture, it comes neatly “saran-wrapped.” We’ve had to develop a technique for removing the wrap, because one false start and you end up having to cut it off. Margaret is an expert at unwrapping the paper, and when Mark is not quite awake enough to do it he just hands it over to her. There is one problem with this wrap, however. The paper generally stays in the rolled-up shape for a good portion of the day, unless you put some weight on the pages to smooth them down. This second picture shows what I mean.