Newspapers have undeniably taken a hit due to the past decade’s technology spike.
Last year, the Council of Economic Advisors reported that the print newspaper industry shed 28.4 percent of jobs in the field since 2007. It concluded that newspapers “show no signs that the downward trend will reverse itself in the near future.” Newspapers will never again solely provide news because they won’t trump the reporting of Internet and television. But if newspapers die, a part of American history and tradition die too. And America should never go down without a fight.
Today, breaking news comes from the radio, TV, laptop, and cellphone hours before arriving in your mailbox. Your pocket beeps when news breaks, and social media blow up because someone somewhere did something stupid. You need hardly seek the flood of the media; it finds you, whether you like it or not.
News is so readily available that the argument has become: People just do not have time for newspapers anymore. In reality, people have time for newspapers, but have lost the patience for them. We can spend an hour surfing the web easily, but sitting and reading a black-and-white for 20 minutes is unthinkable. Instead of licking our thumbs to turn pages, we scroll through cyberspace. Americans have lost the contemplative mindset. Thus, rather than taking the time to sit down and discover news for yourself, news intake becomes a sheerly passive experience as the flood of media overwhelms you at the click of the mouse.
Internet news may fit large cities better. But community and college newspapers would not be the same if online only. Readers would not care enough to subscribe online as when news comes right to the door. Students read college newspapers because they can more easily access news specific to them than they can online. Print newspaper is also the best reporting mode for smaller communities. If the content and style of news reporting must appeal to the reader, then news delivery must also, which means accommodating all kinds of readers.
Despite this, some old-fashioned sentiment runs in American blood. Though many readers prefer the efficiency and immediacy of online news, others prefer hard copy. Newspapers are the ready choice for those who lack access to Internet or computers and for those unused to technology. People will continue to read newspapers because they have their whole lives. The challenge facing newspapers will force journalists to refine their craft and will usher in a new age of print journalism precision.
But no matter how people want to experience news, we should not let print newspapers die. Americans today believe that we’re entitled to free news on the Internet. But just as you would pay for a concert or a best-selling book, good news writing costs money. People’s livelihoods depend on reporting the news. If consumers want well-written, unbiased reporting, we must pay.
But the argument for print over screen goes deeper than just preference or convenience. It recalls history and tradition, dedication to small town USA, loyalty to one’s hometown. It remembers days when one would pick the paper off the driveway on Saturday morning and pour through it over a cup of coffee, clip out a favorite article and stuff it in a scrapbook, or draw a black eye and a mustache on some disliked public figure. It recollects when one could hold a tangible piece of history in one’s hands and run one’s fingers over the big, bold headline, and save it to show to future generations, saying, “This is mine. This is my stake to history. And here is my story too.”
Newspapers hold sentimental value, and therefore, are worth the small subscription cost: less than $3 per week for the Hillsdale Daily News, about $30 a week for the New York Times. Hillsdale students and alumni striving for truth could subscribe to both for about the cost of a daily Starbucks skinny vanilla latte.
Newspapers will remain because those who believe that reading a newspaper is an enjoyable process, those who prefer holding both history and daily life in their hands, and we happy few who cherish the appeal of a printed paper will continue to demand them.