Have You Heard The News

There's been more news about the decline in newspaper circulation. This always seems to be a source of joy for the likes of Ms. Malkin, and other right-wingers. I always wonder why that is. They still rely on the news-gathering functions of these newspapers, but they just prefer to get the stories online, or second-hand through some news filter like "Drudge" or some other editor aggregator. Ms. Malkin actually quotes approvingly from someone who thinks that talk radio should be our substitute for the news. Don't those talk radio folks just sit there reading to us from the newspaper, and then ranting about it?

I was especially curious about this comment, which came at the end of Ms. Malkin's dance of joy -

Parting question: I’m curious about how many of you still subscribe to a dead-tree newspaper. It’s been years since I had one delivered to my home. How about you?

Years? Really? No newspapers at all in the house? Three questions come to mind.

1. Leave aside whatever prejudices you may have about the "mainstream media" (or MSM, as they like to say, probably because it reminds them of KSM). Don't you live in a community, and doesn't it have a local paper? Aren't you the least bit curious about what is going on in your town or city, in local government, or in your schools? Sure, local papers might be lower down on the media food chain, but they still are something to use in order to keep up with what's going on, where you live.

2. Don't you have kids? What are you teaching your kids about being an informed citizen? Are you just training your kids to stare at a video screen? Kids should be provided with good examples, including seeing their parents reading and discussing the news. My kids have grown into well-informed young people, not because we berated them about reading the news, but because it seemed like a natural thing to do. Oh, and get a good newspaper into your home each day, and your kids' vocabularies will grow - heck, if the "raise more informed kids" reason doesn't appeal to the average right-winger, maybe the "score higher on the SATs" motivation will work.

3. The comics. How can you not get the comics?