Connections: New Addictions

Did you read about the gigantic opossum that got stuck in a wooden gate in Sag Harbor last week? The story of its rescue was told on easthamptonstar.com almost as soon as it was freed, and the ’possum pictures, which The Star didn’t have room to publish in print, were ridiculously adorable. This week, like all weeks nowadays, plenty of feature and sports photos that weren’t used in the paper itself appeared on the web. When a fire broke out at Duryea’s Lobster Deck on Fort Pond Bay in Montauk Saturday afternoon, to give another example, the story and accompanying images popped up quickly on the website and an update was posted later in the day.

I’m old-fashioned about reading, almost always choosing a book between covers rather than a Kindle and a snail-mailed magazine rather than an electronic version, but lately I find myself making a habit of going to The Star’s website a few times a day. 

For decades, I have tried to read every word that appears in The Star, and I get a head start each week by editing some of the stories that will appear. Nevertheless, the website is filling a daily gap I didn’t know existed. Every time I look at it I find something our digital editor, Taylor Vecsey, decided should be put there right away rather than held for print publication. We’re not about to become a daily newspaper, to be sure — but reading more of it ahead of time turns out to be fun as well as useful.

It goes without saying, probably, that what is called breaking news (fires, bad accidents, and, at this time of year, weather warnings and cancellations) can now be seen on the website as promptly as possible, but surprising features and news of a lighter variety — like the aforementioned opossum — pop up constantly there, too. Eventually, everything ends up on the website, including the long, detailed accounts of what government and quasi-governmental organizations here are doing; reports of meetings; activities of the civic groups, and so on. 

I, and our readers, do still have to wait for Thursday for many of the more popular parts of the paper: the yard sale ads, the letters to the editor, editorials, and personal columns (and, yes, the drunken-driving arrests), but these juicy bits seem even more worth the wait when you have whetted your appetite all week long via the digital portal. 

It is impossible to ignore the evidence that news-hounds in generations younger than mine are more apt to get what is called news these days digitally than any other way. It’s in the zeitgeist, and I don’t want to be left behind. 

Even though I am sure that sources like Twitter, which limits entries to 140 characters, or Facebook and Instagram cannot do more than provide superficial summaries and links, they certainly make it easy to catch ahold of unfolding events, and they certainly stoke the fires of news addiction in those so inclined.

I’ve got a vested interest in The Star, of course, and am delighted that the number of individual visits to our website is growing by leaps and bounds. In the end, naturally, I hope that those who are introduced to The Star through the website will become print subscribers, too. The surprising thing I’ve discovered is that my own growing digital-news compulsion, far from being discouraging on that score, points to healthy days ahead for local newsprint.