Travel Blog

What’s happening today to the newspaper industry is similar to what happened a few decades ago to the tobacco industry. People are realizing that reading a newspaper is a filthy, disgusting habit - especially to those who don’t partake. (Ever get seated at a restaurant next to someone reading a newspaper?)

But reading a newspaper, like smoking a cigarette, makes those who do it feel very good. So while it may go out of fashion as a popular habit, it will surely remain as a forbidden pleasure. Just as cigar bars opened to satisfy the needs of demonized smokers, newspaper bars will open soon for the increasingly ostracized print crowd. They will provide a place for people to sit and read the news, the sports, the comics, and the obits in peace. It will become hip, like lighting up a stogie, to pop in for a satisfying hour with the paper. Newspapers from around the country will be available, until they go out of business, after which customers will dip into the classics: The Miami News, The Philadelphia Bulletin, the New York Herald Tribune. Newspaper bars will be found in every city, and people will walk out of them refreshed, with darkened fingertips and well-cluttered minds.