New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
Sure, we live in a digital age. Many of us are connected at all times – to our smart phones, laptops or tablets. When we want information, we simply swipe and start typing. There’s so much information, that you can easily get swept up and find yourself in a completely unrelated topic and 20 minutes have passed.
Who hasn’t started searching for “chicken recipe” and found themselves watching videos of fail compilations, replete with people slipping, falling, and missing piñatas and whacking crotches? And reading material is easy to come by. There’s certainly not a want for it.
Now you can color me old-fashioned, but I love to sit down to a good book or magazine. I like not having to search for 15 minutes to narrow down the information I need, and hoping there isn’t a dropped signal interrupting my queries. 
My go-to spot for magazines and a place I love dearly, since I am an avid reader, is Newsbreak at 53 Pope’s Island. Or as we say colloquially: “The magazine store on the bridge.”
There’s an analogy here with the “starting to search for one thing and 20 minutes later, you’re onto an unrelated topic.” Often I’ll go in to get a Science magazine or National Geographic and 15 minutes later, I’m holding a magazine on reptilians having built Atlantis. How did that happen?! With over 5,000 magazine titles, this is an easy thing to do. There seems to not only be a magazine for every imaginable niche, but there seem to be many to choose from within that tiny niche.
Walking through Newsbreak is like being in a library -so much so that it’s not uncommon to hear people shush a companion or child they are with and forcing them to whisper. The selection is massive and current – it’s what Newsbreak is known for and what President, Jim Stanton, is particularly proud of.
That selection includes international magazines in a myriad of languages. There are a score of different Fantasy Football publications, Knitting, Crafting, Science, Archaeology, adult, etc., if you can imagine it, there are a few – or even many – magazines covering it. In fact, if you don’t see it, just let someone on staff know, and they will order it for you!
What many people don’t know is that Newsbreak offers more than magazines. They have a selection of greeting cards, maps, sport and non-sport trading cards including Upper Deck, Topps, Pokemon, Benchwarmers, Score, Bowman, Magic, and more. You can get lottery tickets, scratch tickets, tobacco products, and of course, gift certificates.
In all the years, I have visited Newsbreak – intentionally or unintentionally – when the bridge “gets” me, I have always found that whomever is behind the counter is friendly and knows the store and titles well. If I’m looking for something obscure, perhaps looking for something to help my research on an article, the staff often replies with an instant answer of exactly where the article is. At times, they have been so knowledgeable that they go beyond just point out where the title is, but they have even recommended a specific title to help me out.
The point being that in spite of the fact that Newsbreak can be said to be a chain – it has two locations, the flagship in Swansea near the mall has been around for 30 years – there is a very mom-and-pop, local atmosphere. My kind of thing.
Check out Newsbreak’s Facebook page below – they often post about specials or special events, like the annual FREE Comic Book Day, or FREE Hockey card day.
So if you are a bit old-fashioned like me, picked up a new hobby and looking for literature, or maybe just got caught on the bridge, take a stop by Newsbreak and browse. You’ll be glad you did. If you see a Neanderthal browsing the MMA, Linux, archaeology or “reptilians built Atlantis” section, that’s me. Say “Hi!” but don’t say it loudly and make me hush you!
53 Pope’s Island
New Bedford, Massachusetts
New Bedford Phone: 508–997-NEWS (6397)
Swansea Phone: (508) 675-9380
EMail: newsbreak@cox.net
Hours of Operation:
Mon-Sat: 7:00am-9:00pm
Sun: 7:00am-6:00pm
Facebook: facebook.com/NewsbreakInc?rf=121407877873440
