One of my favourite things to do when travelling is to sit somewhere and have a cup of tea and read the local newspaper. There is something about reading a local newspaper that captures the essence of a place in a way that’s difficult to get otherwise: both the experience of reading the paper, and what I learn from the paper itself are instructive and often entertaining.
In a somewhat diluted version of this spirit, I noticed that Eastlink’s Digital Cable offering here in Charlottetown now includes channels 260 through 279, a package titled the “Time Zone Pack,” and available for free until February.
These channels are all mirrors of existing basic cable networks but from other time zones. There are CTV, CBC and Global from Vancouver, NTV from Newfoundland, ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and PBS from Seattle and CITY from Toronto.
Not only does this afford the opportunity of watching programs at unusual times of the day — the supper hour news from British Columbia at 10:00 p.m., for example, or Survivor at 1:00 a.m. — but it also makes local market commercials from “foreign” markets available, which, for me, is the most interesting part of watching different television.
In a similar vein, I noticed that fred, the alternative weekly newspaper from Fredericton, is now available on the newsstand at the Formosa Tea House. More political and issues-driven than The Buzz, reading fred gave me an interesting insight into life in Fredericton. There’s a particularly interesting article in the current issue about a man who’s been camping on the front lawn of the New Brunswick Legislature for 152 days in a campaign to have Ritalin use curbed.
Comments
I’ve been enjoying the ‘time shift’ feature on ExpressVu for a couple of years now. Working evenings it’s great being able to watch the western feeds later at night. It’s also handy when 2 shows you want to see are on at the same time. But I’d rather read local papers from away than watch local tv news from away.
She travels alot, and when she wants to bring me home something, I always ask for an english version of the local papers. I can find all I want in foreign journalism here on the web, but for some reason, I prefer the paper in hand. I have been labeled the product of the newspaper generation by an American professor I had a conversation over dinner last year. He stated he tells all his students to not use any newspaper as a source for research, as it is mostly old news by the time it is read. He could not understand my preference for editorial journalism, which is not necessarily the case on the Internet. There is a “date” generation(25-30)who are paranoid about expiry dates, a “Nintendo generation”(15-25)who were brought up on video games. I thought I was part of the “pop-up video” generation, but perhaps “newspaper generation” also applies.
I know that guy.
He needs to get back on the Ritalin.
CBC overnight on Radio2 features a new country every hour, BBC, Radio Prague, New Zealand, etc. Good for your ears. Then when you wake up at noon from staying up late listening to that, tune into KFI Los Angeles and they’ll tell you it’s 8:00AM.
If it’s Sunday morning you can listen to the Jesus Christ show, hosted by Jesus Christ.
Peter, you definitely need to subscribe to the Western Graphic, weekly news from Alberton, Tignish, O’Leary, where there are no legislature lawns, but lots of camping which can have a calming effect like Ritalin.