Dear News and Observer, A couple of weeks ago, Gary wrote about receiving a $600 bill to renew his subscription. Well, I did too. I received a $600 bill. I thought about it, swallowed hard, and paid it. But it didn’t quite work out quite the way I expected: Every morning, for years, my newspaper has landed at the end of my front walk. But, suddenly, it vanished. About a week later, I spotted a stack of newspapers in a quiet corner of a four-acre field in front of my house, called the N&O, explained the problem, and went to bed that night thinking, Problem solved. But the next morning there was no newspaper.

Now, these days a lot of folks get vexed over ‘Fake News’ – on CNN Trump can do no right and on Fox and he can do no wrong. And the same germ has infected almost all the newspapers – they’ve chosen sides in the for-Trump against-Trump war.

Eventually, I discovered another stack of misplaced newspapers but this time, as I leaned down to pick them up, a soft voice, purring temptation, whispered in my ear: Do you think there’s a newspaper anywhere anymore that’s worth paying $600 to read?