The ability to read a broadsheet newspaper rather than a tabloid 'newspaper' was the old 'class divide'. In the pre-internet days when newspapers were still all

The ability to read a broadsheet newspaper rather than a tabloid 'newspaper' was the old 'class divide'. In the pre-internet days when newspapers were still allegedly important, not everyone could read a full length article in 'The Manchester Guardian'. (Not sure what the U.S. equivalent would be). Papers like 'The Sun' and 'The Daily Mail' were there to entertain and brainwash. Their headline writers were absolutely excellent at what they did, e.g. 'FREDDIE STARR ATE MY HAMSTER'. Does that not pique your curiosity? There is not a lot that can be added to that story - did the hamster taste nice? Who knows, the hamster was never eaten and the article was a bit of 'fake news' (clickbait) and was there to promote the comedian's up and coming tour. Most people elected to read something other than 'The Guardian' even if they went broadsheet rather than tabloid. For every Guardian reader there were ten 'Telegraph' readers and maybe three 'Times' readers. Now I was a paperboy back then so I read all the papers extremely quickly. Only 'The Guardian' and 'The Financial Times' interested me enough to not speed read. It amused me to see people waste their attention on the other papers. Why spend a Sunday ploughing through The Sunday Times? It was a good all-day read back then. Yet I felt a lot of people were going through the motions, trying to focus on these stupid papers that rarely had more than one genuine bit of investigative journalism in them, if that. As a child with every paper free to read every day I gravitated towards the newspaper requiring attention. I could have just stared at Sam Fox's breasts on page 3 of the Sun but preferred the financial pages of the Guardian, followed by the international news. Importantly I decided this for myself, not out of peer pressure. Moving swiftly on to today and here I am reading HN instead of whatever junk appears as 'news' on the Internet Explorer home page or the online version of the Daily Mail. Why am I again in the minority of people seeking more than PR pieces about 'hamsters being eaten'?