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I have subscribed to a daily print newspaper.

I really enjoy a good paper, but the one I subscribed to is not a good paper. It’s owned by Gannett. A lot of the content is exactly what’s in USA Today. Section B of my paper is, as far as I can tell, USA Today’s section A verbatim. And local coverage is thin. Sometimes the front page has 12 column-inches of news on it. A few stock photos and two-inch headlines holding up not so many words.

I knew all this going in. It’s why I never subscribed before.

I subscribed for three reasons.

1. The handful of reporters left in that newsroom are vital civic infrastructure. The world is going to get a lot darker when they’re gone, and we’ll all wonder why.

2. Not scowling at newsprint was a major gap in my curmudgeonly persona.

3. I need a better news source.

We are going to have to have a little talk about that last thing. Shut up, you knew this was coming. Pull up a chair.

I know you. You get most of your news from Twitter and Facebook. (Or maybe you’re one of those assholes that bragged to me at a party that you get all your news from The Daily Show. Well, congratulations. But your news comes in headlines, followed by applause or boos, followed by sketch comedy, just like Twitter. It doesn’t get any shallower and you’re no better than anyone else.)

Oh, you also listen to This American Life? Gold star.

So how’s it going?

Even the worst newspaper is pretty great compared to the Internet. The ads are less intrusive. Even the wrap-around ad that I have to physically tear off the front page before I can read my paper is less intrusive than the crap people have to endure or physically dismiss online. (Yeah, I know, you use an ad blocker, so you are blissfully unaware of this.)

When the Internet first came along, we were all pretty excited about getting out from under the filters that the media imposed on us. Instead, our friends and the people we admire would be our filters. Well, we’ve discovered something interesting about ourselves. The filter we create for ourselves is dramatically worse. We never have any real idea what’s going on. We read more trash. We read more pop culture fluff. We have invented whole new genres of trash and pop culture fluff. We’re making ourselves worse.

Reading a newspaper is frustrating and enlightening and stupid and entertaining and anti-entertaining. The paper is chock full of content that’s not for me. ...And maybe that’s what’s so good about it. The people creating the content are not hostile toward me; they just don’t know I’m here. It’s relaxing.