Away from the MSM

I should reflect more on this recent change to my habits; but briefly, I don’t buy a newspaper anymore and I’ve nearly given up listening to BBC R4. I had bought The Guardian just about every publication day since I first went to university (my parents bought the South Wales Echo, an almost entirely uninteresting regional rag). I’ve listened to R4 forever and some of it was very good indeed; and some of it was very, very poor.

Now, I download podcasts overnight and listen to them during the day. The downloads include R4’s programme, In Our Time from Melvyn Bragg, surely the finest series of radio broadcasts ever; and other good stuff too, from all over the world.

I grab R4 news headlines when I get up and switch it off soon because of the insufferable presenters on BBC’s R4 Today. I read up more on the web, browsing through my RSS reader and favourite sites for my news. The Guardian is notable for its interesting web experiment with the Comment is Free website and the ongoing trashing its paid-for commentators are receiving now they’re opening up their opinions for the rest of the world to comment upon.

I’m more and better informed now than I ever was and I’m not paying the news sources or commentators for it. Good for me but I wonder how they intend to make a living.

In the case of the BBC, they have a compulsory licence fee to rely on. I’d prefer to pay for Melvyn Bragg and save the rest of my money for content I want. Imagine if I didn’t have to pay for Celebrity Come Dancing (at the threat of imprisonment) and could instead fund the content I want to buy. Imagine.