How did you access news when you were a child?

TV news (when I got old enough to care about news). My parents read the paper, but I did not really start reading the newspaper until I was an adult.

The newspaper. The Star Ledger to be specific.

My family got the New York Herald Tribune delivered daily. My memory of breakfast is an open newspaper with my father allegedly behind it. I began by reading the back pages and then got to read the sections when he was through. Radio (no TV in house until I was in HS and then for special occasions only. Huge box and tiny b and w screen.)

1944—->

Mom told me.

Network and local TV. Its a wonder I turned out so open-minded.

It sounds incredibly pretentious, but I’ve read the New York Times since I was like 5 years old. I also remember when my family first got cable and 24 cable news was available, although I never depended on it for any information.

As a child? You know that game “telephone,” where you sit in a circle with your classmates, and one at a time, someone whispers in the next kid’s ear…

Seriously, newspapers and my parents listened to radio (AM) news shows whenever we rode in the car.

Wait…. you mean there was news on when I was a kid?????

I was a sports junkie since I was 4 years old. I would watch ESPN all the time and read the sports section in local papers.

I remember the “Weekly Reader”. We read it in class and then it contained the list of books that we could buy when the book fair rolled through. Commercialism and the news. They sure prepped us early!

Linda ellerbee on the nick channel

My parents would quiz us on the news of the day (to which we had no access whatever; tv didn’t have news yet, just
howdy doody and milton berle, and we couldn’t read yet).
We would be struck dumb with humiliation because we didn’t know. Then they would scream at us.

@susanc Ah! Memories! Such joy in the home.

In fifth grade, we had to give regular oral news reports. I still remember standing in front of the class and announcing that my bulletin originated in Tukson, Arizona.

But later, when I was nine or so, I discovered that the Saturday Evening Post had cartoons which in their circular way explained to me what people were thinking about in the world outside my family’s house. I learned the following: men hate their mothers-in-law, because they come to visit; women hate their mothers-in-law, because they criticize the really bad cooking of all brides; children are noisy and rude; old rich men like young stupid sexy women and can have them but are not loved by them; dogs are dirty; men who go to the office want to sleep all weekend; wives want husbands to repair things all weekend; all marriages are hell; all children are not worth having; it’s very funny when people do bad things when the minister is walking by; men don’t want to mow their lawns. Politicians always lie. And kiss babies. Not as much about the world outside neighborhoods.

@Susanc: and Norman Rockwell was King of the World. Then Life magazine, and finally, the 8th wonder of world, The New Yorker. That is where I got my first taste of the power and majesty of words and how a cartoon could really knock your socks off.

Rockwell museum nearby; spooky to see the originals of those covers.

Same as gail, different newspaper, (LA Times and SD Union). First was radio and movies. For 30 cents (adult) or 15 cents (child), you’d get a newsreel, (scroll down, Chuckie, the hula hoop one is for you) a cartoon or two, previews of coming attractions, and a cliffhanger (my favorite and the first I remember).

I remember the news on the radio less, but do remember important events breaking into radio shows. We didn’t get a TV until I was 3, but it was limited, even in Los Angeles, so the radio was still used.

TV news started out much shorter than it is today and much less elaborate, basically a 15 minute dry read with perhaps a still picture behind it. It was fun when the pictures would get mixed up or out of sync and the reader would not realize it.

The very first news that I remember recognizing as news was on the original Mickey Mouse Club newsreel.

The first newscaster I have memories of was Clete Roberts

@gail: I lived in Tukson for a short while. I determined who my friends were in college by posting a New Yorker cartoon on my dorm door. The first frame had a huge NY Times Sunday paper on a porch. The second was the paper removed, funny looking squished dog underneath, tongue flattened out. Odd humor, yes, but I would wait for someone to stop and laugh and then open the door and find a new friend. I still have more than one of those friends all these years later.

@susanc That sounds like torture. It’s a wonder you do not hate news to this day.

My mother has always watched fox news, so for a long time that was where I got my news. Once I was old enough to care about news I started getting it from other places, including CNN and BBC (thanks to a teacher I had in seventh grade who warned her class to always watch more than one news station.) Since I stopped watching television I’ve gotten some news from various internet sources, but for the most part I don’t look for it. Most of the news isn’t really news. I have friends who I can trust to filter the important news through to me.

AM radio and newspapers. My grandparents had a little Philco AM radio on the kitchen table that just stayed on all the time, tuned to WBBM-AM or WMAQ-AM out of Chicago. It was the CNN of it’s era.

When I was very small I used to listen to the news on the radio as my father drove me to the babysitter’s house in the morning. And then once I was there I’d turn on the TV and watch more news. (The Halabja poison gas attack happened less than two weeks after my fourth birthday. Hearing about it on the news is one of my earliest memories, and it’s the reason why I was afraid of chemical and biological warfare while my peers were busy being afraid of things like big dogs and the dark.)

I started reading the newspaper in third grade (age 8 or 9) when my parents realized there was no use in trying to censor my reading. They felt stupid grounding me for trying to learn and be aware of the world and if I wanted to read something badly enough I would find a way.

The Washington Post Newspaper, even though I delivered it’s arch rival, the now defunct Washington Star. I’m still a Post girl, today.

@marina I do hate news to this day, especially tv news, where the newscasters behave a good deal like my family, as petethepothead says: they try to get us overexcited about things that haven’t changed since yesterday or even last week. But I read the New Yorker very carefully every week, because I trust the writers’ worldview and their respect for language.
I read the NYTimes online. I read The Nation. I listen to NPR only when driving. I can’t tolerate much info coming into my ears (probably because of all the ranting in my natal home). I like to decide who’s going to teach me things and then only if they’ll write it down instead of saying it. Hence fluther.