Writer's block overcome

People have writer's block not because they can't write, but because they despair of writing eloquently. That's not the way it works, and one of the best places to learn that is a newspaper, which in its instant obsolescence is infinitely forgiving.

Anna Quindlen, "The Eye of the Reporter, the Heart of the Novelist," in Writers on Writing Volume II (2003), p. 197.

Andrew Jackson, newspaper reader, information manager

Jackson, though not known to read a great many books, was the quintessential newspaper consumer. In the 1820s he subscribed to as many as seventeen papers at a time, and did not like the throw them away. He might go through them later, seeking clippings he wanted to pass to a friend or use to smite an enemy. The papers piled up so high that his household began having them bound—huge volumes, each with a year to a year and a half's worth of issues and as oversize as the broadsheet papers it contained. The information in those volumes could be instruments of power. And Jackson the collection of newspapers was also a collector of newsmen. Once he became president, Jackson would draw newspaper editors into his circle of intimate advisors . . . .

Steve Inskeep, Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab (New York: Penguin, 2015), p. 174

Rockets can never work

On January 13, 1920, the New York Times ridiculed the ideas of Robert H. Goddard. Goddard, a physicist and pioneer in the field of rocketry, was at the time sponsored by the Smithsonian. Nonetheless, the Gray Lady argued in an editorial that thinking that any sort of rocket could ever work int he vacuum of space is essentially foolishness and a blatant disregard for a high school understanding of physics. The editors even went into reasonable detail in order to debunk Goddard.

Luckily the Times was willing to print a correction. The only hitch: They printed it the day after Apollo 11's launch in 1969. Three days before humans first walked on the moon, they recanted their editorial with this bit of understatement:

Further investigation and experimentation have confirmed the findings of Isaac Newton in the 17th century and is now definitely established that a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere. The Times regrets the error.

Samuel Arbesman, The  Half-Life of  Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date (New York: Current, Penguin USA, 2012), ch. 9 (citing "A Correction," N.Y. Times, July 17, 1969).

Enabling comments leads to slant

[W]hen you and I can contribute to an online newspaper, there's a surprising effect on the real-world version. The print versions of the papers become more mild in terms of the opinions expressed (particularly those of a political bent), while conversely, the online versions of the papers become more slanted, either to the left or to the right.

David R. Bell, Location Is (Still) Everything: The Surprising Influence of the Real World on How We Search, Shop, and Sell in the Virtual One (Seattle: Amazon Publishing, 2014), p. 136 (citing Pinar Yilirim, Esther Gal-Or & Tansev Geylani, "User-Generated Content and Bias in News Media," Management Science, vol. 59, no. 12 (Dec. 2013), pp. 2655-66)

Will newspapers be around in 1960?

I spent the morning in reading Dumas, and in wasting time over the Sunday Herald. I wonder whether Sunday newspapers will exist in 1960, or if they do exist whether they will be larger or smaller than at present. They are now a resource for people who read nothing else, but a burden for the rest of the world.

Adam Sherman Hill, Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, Harvard University, March 4, 1900, journal entry for a project to be placed in the University Archives and opened in 1960. Quoted in The American Scholar, Spring 2001, at 131-32.

Stick to the Britannica

I’m pissed at myself. I just spent forty-five minutes Googling my ex-girlfriends and ex-crushes. That’s just information I don’t need. . . . Those forty-five minutes could have been spent any number of ways: reading the Britannica would have been nice,or hanging out with my wife, or maybe sorting our rubber bands by size and color. As Dr. DeBakey points out, I have a limited amount of time. So that’s it: No more inconsequential Googling, I tell myself. Though I know that vow will be unbroken for maybe three days, max.

It’s been a constant battle to dam the data flood that comes with being a 21st-century American. I’m trying to keep my mind relatively free from non-Britannica information on the Sherlock Holmesian theory that there’s only so much room in the mental attic. And I have made a little progress. I’ve cut way down on the New York Post; no more updates on Kirsten Dunst’s canoodling behavior for me. I trimmed back on my New York Times consumption—only the important articles about world events; no more whimsical stories about the trend for upscale luaus.

A.J. Jacobs, The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2005), p. 271.