I wind down the car window and say, “Kasi The Edge satu, Berita Harian satu, Sin Chew satu. Semua berapa?” while handing him a RM10 note. Without a beat, the newspaper man limps closer and enquires, “You mau itu Edge Daily kah atau Weekly?”
He drops all the newspapers onto the passenger seat and hands me the change; and today, I push a pink envelope into his hand and say “Ini kasi you.”
Taking it with a quizzed look, he manages to yell “Terima Kasih!”… squinting his eyes as he tries to take a memory snapshot of the car that speeds off.
I have read the local newspapers all my life.
From my primary days when dad bought the Malay Mail – which by the way, is an English newspaper – that became the family’s default reading staple, and which comic pages and characters becoming an integral part of all of us kids’ daily, after-school lives.
It hasn’t been much different until now.
I still buy the newspapers – though more regularly over the weekend, and continue to read them; especially the special columns that feature my favorite columnists.
However, today my reading channel sources has invariably, extended online.
Mostly for newspapers that I cannot physically access here – New York Times, Jakarta Post, CNN, Tech News World, Internet World, EIN News, The Straits Times, etc and of course the wonderfully convenient Mashable tweets of tech-trending stories to check out.
Inevitably over the recent years, the Internet Age has given us all many other reading options, which has added on to the (yet still) very economical luxury of thumbing through the good old newspaper.
But these days, I feel for my resident newspaper man.
I remember him as long as I lived in this housing estate, which is close to a decade now. He is always there, rain or shine, 24×7…selling the evening editions at the kerb outside the Shell petrol station, and still making it early each morning to his familiar post at the main road near Maybank.
If there is one local icon who depicts a true-life example to the meaning of the word ‘consistency’ and a ‘good, honest living’ – then that should be my newspaper man.
Yet these days after GE13, and due to some of the nonsense that many mainstream newspapers are carrying, people have started boycotting their familiar local newspaper brands and turning to alternative media.
I can’t but feel sorry for the newspaper man – or uncle newspaper man – as I eye piles of unsold papers stacked at his station and think how the phrase “Don’t shoot the messenger” – would best apply to him if he could express his frustration in the sharp drop of his daily paper sales.
I don’t know how much the man makes in a day standing for hours on his bad leg(s). But I hope that the RM100 stuffed in the pink envelope helps a bit, and cheers him up at least for today
IT BYTES BACK! Says: Whether it is due to a global phenomenon of the advancing Internet Age, or because of local developments, it looks like newspapers might become a thing of the past.
