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A Defense of Newspapers and Paid Content

From veteran football writer Peter King, in his latest installment of "Monday Morning Quarterback" at Sports Illustrated:

Always learn a lot reading the New York Times. Always. Like last Wednesday: Did you know Bill Clinton's a vegan? That a public school superintendent of a system in Maine with declining enrollment traveled to China to try to convince parents to send their kids to school in his town? That, in the past 26 years, 24 New Yorkers have been killed or seriously injured in fights arising over Halloween eggings? That (and I particularly liked this one) the World Series mayors are both former baseball players themselves and, in their own way, are politically/baseball correct--Democrat Gavin Newsome of San Francisco throws left, Republican Tom Leppert of Dallas throws right.
I have heard people complain that the price of newspapers is going up, or that newspaper websites, in starting to charge people for content (which is long overdue), are turning people away from the papers. Well, I guess paying $2 for the Times is prohibitive outside of New York City compared to recent days, when it could be had for less than a dollar. But I paid $2.49 for a Zone bar in Logan Airport the other day and $2 for the newspaper. I was finished with the Zone bar in seven bites--maybe five minutes. I spent 75 minutes with the Times, then put the crossword in my bag (frustratingly) to work on it later in the week. Pretty good deal if you ask me.

Now, if he could just explain why the NFL experts committee voted Brett Farve and John Elway ahead of Dan Marino on the Top 100 players list...  

(I'll concede Peyton Manning and Joe Montana, though Manning gets an asterisk because of his era's tougher pass interference rules.)