Response #4 (Lecture on Newspapers)

Ok, so my last response is going to be on newspapers. Now, although I don't read the newspaper and my family doesn't even have a subscription, I still feel like they should stay around. I'm really not a big fan of any kind of change, and discontinuing newspapers would be a huge change. Imagine, if you do get the newspaper, having to either watch the news or get on the computer every morning instead of being able to just read the newspaper.

Now, to be honest, when Mr. Miller first started talking about newspapers, I had the same reaction as a lot of people nowadays might have-"Oh god, why don't they just stop making them? It's such a waste of paper and no one reads them anyway." Some of you are probably gasping in absolute horror right now (including you, Mr. Miller), which is understandable. I didn't realize how much easier, more accessible, and more affordable newspapers are than other forms of mass communications such as the internet and television news.

Here's just a couple of reasons that I now understand to be why we should keep newspapers:

• They are affordable (sometimes only 99 cents)
• They are non-linear, meaning you can skip from article to article, and section to section, and you don't even have to read the whole thing (wow, amazing!)
• They are one of the first forms of mass communication, and to stop making them would be sad, and a disgrace to the world of journalism
• you don't have to be smart to use a newspaper, it doesn't require any prior knowledge or skills (other than knowing how to read)
• some people just like having the physical copy of the newspaper
• The articles are able to go into much more detail than those on TV news (can't say the same for the internet, but that's a different story)
• people generally find newspapers more credible and trust them more than other sources

And so, friends, I have learned my lesson. Newspapers are awesome. And they shouldn't go anywhere, at least not for a while.