The USA Today's turnpike tyranny
While some people buy souvenir shirts or shot glasses to remember a vacation or trip, I buy newspapers.
I started doing it back in junior high, when I saved a Star-Tribune from my first trip to Minneapolis. I still have that paper; it is at the bottom of a stack that includes the Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Denver Post, Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News, Santa Cruz Sentinel, and Honolulu Advertiser. The stack includes other dailies from the same cities, a bunch of DMRs from mini-vacations to the State Fair and Franklin County, and papers friends gave me from their vacations. I forgot to nab a paper in Memphis and did not care to buy The Daily Corinthian, but I did pick up a Saint Louis Post-Dispatch on my recent sojourn to the South.
Newspapers have always had a certain, indescribable aura and appeal for me. (Hypocritically, though, I almost never buy the local IC newspapers. Shame on me. I need to remedy that.) Plus, I have a history with papers and am a page design geek; I love seeing how different papers are designed. So naturally I was excited to grab a couple papers on my trip to Pittsburgh. (Admittedly, I was downright eager to buy a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.) However, it all went horribly wrong thanks to the USA Today.
The original plan was to buy a newspaper in each state on my trip to the Steel City — Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. After fueling up at Dan’s Short Stop, I bought a CRG. Iowa was covered. However, when I stopped in Joliet to top off the tank (I did not want to buy gas in Indiana since the Toll Road’s westernmost service plazas are exclusively served by BP; plus, gas in Indiana is insanely expensive) I forgot to grab a Chicago Tribune. No worries, I thought; perhaps the nearest service plaza will have Tribs and, hopefully, the Indianapolis Star.
When I pulled off at the plaza just after the toll gate on the Interstate 80 portion, I looked in the little convenience store for a Trib and Star. All I found were copies of the USA Today, Sporting News, and a golf paper.
What the fuck? No local or state flavor?
I walked to the little BP outpost and looked for papers there. Finding none, I asked the cashier if they sold papers and he responded with a stern, “No!” When I asked if they only sold them in the main plaza, he nodded and looked out to the pumps.
Welcome to Indiana.
When I stopped again farther down the road I found the same national drivel. It was the same story in Western Ohio. I still had high hopes of snagging The Plain Dealer when I passed close to Cleveland, but alas — the service plaza news racks were stacked high with USA Todays. My grand “five papers in five states in one day” plan was a bust thanks to national media conglomerates, who negotiate deals with toll road commissions. So the only local paper I managed to buy on my trip to Pittsburgh was the CRG.
However, I will admit part of it was my own fault. Though Gannett and its ilk have a stranglehold on turnpike and toll road newsstands, I could have ventured off the Interstate and found a gas station — a potential oasis for the free market of newspapers. And from a business perspective I can see how exclusively selling the USA Today would make sense at service plazas. Much of the traffic seemed to be interstate so most customers would rather read national news. It is what my dad does on vacation.
But it sucks for me. The USA Today is no souvenir.
I started doing it back in junior high, when I saved a Star-Tribune from my first trip to Minneapolis. I still have that paper; it is at the bottom of a stack that includes the Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Denver Post, Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News, Santa Cruz Sentinel, and Honolulu Advertiser. The stack includes other dailies from the same cities, a bunch of DMRs from mini-vacations to the State Fair and Franklin County, and papers friends gave me from their vacations. I forgot to nab a paper in Memphis and did not care to buy The Daily Corinthian, but I did pick up a Saint Louis Post-Dispatch on my recent sojourn to the South.
Newspapers have always had a certain, indescribable aura and appeal for me. (Hypocritically, though, I almost never buy the local IC newspapers. Shame on me. I need to remedy that.) Plus, I have a history with papers and am a page design geek; I love seeing how different papers are designed. So naturally I was excited to grab a couple papers on my trip to Pittsburgh. (Admittedly, I was downright eager to buy a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.) However, it all went horribly wrong thanks to the USA Today.
The original plan was to buy a newspaper in each state on my trip to the Steel City — Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. After fueling up at Dan’s Short Stop, I bought a CRG. Iowa was covered. However, when I stopped in Joliet to top off the tank (I did not want to buy gas in Indiana since the Toll Road’s westernmost service plazas are exclusively served by BP; plus, gas in Indiana is insanely expensive) I forgot to grab a Chicago Tribune. No worries, I thought; perhaps the nearest service plaza will have Tribs and, hopefully, the Indianapolis Star.
When I pulled off at the plaza just after the toll gate on the Interstate 80 portion, I looked in the little convenience store for a Trib and Star. All I found were copies of the USA Today, Sporting News, and a golf paper.
What the fuck? No local or state flavor?
I walked to the little BP outpost and looked for papers there. Finding none, I asked the cashier if they sold papers and he responded with a stern, “No!” When I asked if they only sold them in the main plaza, he nodded and looked out to the pumps.
Welcome to Indiana.
When I stopped again farther down the road I found the same national drivel. It was the same story in Western Ohio. I still had high hopes of snagging The Plain Dealer when I passed close to Cleveland, but alas — the service plaza news racks were stacked high with USA Todays. My grand “five papers in five states in one day” plan was a bust thanks to national media conglomerates, who negotiate deals with toll road commissions. So the only local paper I managed to buy on my trip to Pittsburgh was the CRG.
However, I will admit part of it was my own fault. Though Gannett and its ilk have a stranglehold on turnpike and toll road newsstands, I could have ventured off the Interstate and found a gas station — a potential oasis for the free market of newspapers. And from a business perspective I can see how exclusively selling the USA Today would make sense at service plazas. Much of the traffic seemed to be interstate so most customers would rather read national news. It is what my dad does on vacation.
But it sucks for me. The USA Today is no souvenir.
