In this age of “new media,” do you have any idea how student journalism has fared? Are there more or fewer classes like the one you used to teach? I suspect, fewer. That would represent a real educational loss and eliminate a place of meaning for kids not filling their lives with competitive sports.

Is kids’ work being edited as meticulously? Are they learning about their Constitutional rights? Are they speaking truth to power with the assistance of a fearless competent adult?

I guess I’ll feel less nostalgic for paper-based journalism when there is the blogger equivalent of “Lou Grant” capturing the public’s imagination.

I enjoy sitting down to read the newspaper. It is tactile. Tangible. Turning a page determines what I will read and which photographs I will view. It is quite linear and ordered and requires little or no thinking and/or decision making on my part. I can get ‘lost’ in a broadsheet paper. The moment takes me “away”. Reading the stories, the readers’ letters, the political cartoons and the comics follows a progression that is seemingly innate. I find reading the newspaper to be relaxing and an effective way to de-stress.

In comparison reading the same newspaper online is nowhere near as pleasant. Which link to follow? Which section to scan? Where is the editorial? Where are the political cartoons? I cannot get lost in the moment. Too many distractions online and on the computer. Links to earlier letters to the editor and related information is indeed useful.

New media is here to stay of course. Perhaps limited print runs of newspapers will be continued for diehards such as myself.

I suppose the papers can exaggerate, oversimplify and sensationalize. But they can also inspire, put you in the “place” and inform.

I look forward to 3 or 4 really good articles in my daily paper version NYT. And during the week I look forward to the Metropolitan diary on Monday – - wonderful human interest stories, Thursday’s Circuits section and Friday’s Escapes. There is just something about the anticipation of waiting for the morning news and then there’s the walk in the cold weather to the mailbox.

Thanks for the discussion….

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I don’t remember the last time I read a newspaper… and I would argue that many newspaper articles are not written to inform but rather to exaggerate, or oversimplify, or sensationalize a topic for the sake of grabbing your attention… and then they don’t go deep enough to make the read worthwhile.

I’ve questioned the validity, importance and integrity of papers ever since I watched Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky years ago: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5631882395226827730
(Slow, but very worth watching)

Newspapers’ attempts to sensationalize & create an urgency to read things are what have caused their own demise. So too has their focus on narrow issues that all papers cover… the simple fact is that television and multi-media do that better than papers do.

If papers stopped making what Perez Hilton talks about the focus of their ‘news’ then they will find a market and survive. If I felt I could open a paper and read more than just one good article, that I needed to browse 15 articles to find, then maybe I’d pick one up every now and then, or even subscribe!
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I’ll add here that I like your slant, looking at ‘old media teachers’… why is it that photocopying is still one of a schools biggest costs each year? How many old-reused work sheets are being pumped out every day in classrooms around the world? This isn’t even about the technology, it is about changing practice to provide more opportunities for higher order thinking.

That’s what a good newspaper article does… it challenges you to think and question your stance on a topic… and it doesn’t have to be printed anymore.

My father read the Toronto Star newspaper every day very early in the morning. I can still smell the bacon he used to fry which was part of his morning routine.

Here in rural Canada I was thrilled when the New York Times announced a few years back that it would deliver to my door in my neck of the woods. It is electronically sent to Toronto, printed and then loaded on a truck.

The NYT arrives in my country mailbox at 4:30 a.m. and by 5:30 a.m. the coffee is made, by 6:00 a.m. my fingers are black.

I wouldn’t have it any other way…