Linguist, lexicographer, radio host, public speaker

Stupid newspaper tricks

Newspapers make me register if I want to read their content. Fine. I do so—a lot. My word-hunting means I look at hundreds of articles from hundreds of newspapers around the world every day.

I use real sign-up information. I figure I’m reading their news, they can find out where I live. Very little spam results. The spam that does is easily traceable to specific newspapers, since I use a unique email address for each sign-up. I can block it if I need to.

A lot of newspapers use canned or corporate sign-up pages. Many, many of them have this question:

How dumb is it that there are no “I read it on the Internet” options?

author avatar
Grant Barrett