Column: Newspapers neccesary for student body
Joe Vaccaro
Issue date: 3/9/10 Section: Opinion
For nearly a year now, our campus has been without daily deliveries of The New York Times and we are the poorer for it.
Even though campus abounds with Wi-Fi access and seemingly every student owns a laptop (and can therefore obtain the news online at will), there is no better way of ensuring our student body is informed than by providing each and every student with a free copy of a national newspaper.
The arguments against doing so fall into two categories: cost and the pervasiveness of Internet media.
Cost may actually prevent us from bringing back daily newspapers to campus, but it has no bearing on whether access to the newspaper betters our student body.
The argument for the superiority of Internet media is more complex, but still fails to stand up upon close consideration.
Internet sites devoted to the news generally promote insular and ideologically-driven thinking, and do so not by actually reporting much news themselves, but rather by culling news stories that fit their political bias of choice from more traditional media, like the newspaper.
These sites limit, rather than expand, people's thinking.
Secondly, and more importantly, the newspaper as a medium is far more practical than the Internet - it takes no time to boot up, can never fail because of a bad connection and can be taken comfortably anywhere.
Newspapers are still the most eminently sensible way of disseminating information to the public.
An ill-informed student body is a danger to Hamline.
New developments related to nearly every major are discussed within the pages of the newspaper, and students who are aware of them make the most substantive contributors to their classes.
Additionally, the role of any college is to prepare its students for life in the 'outside world,' and to that end it must provide them with as much information about it as possible.
Even if one disagrees with the editorial and opinion page of The New York Times, only a fool would contend that views expressed there are not worth considering.
Even though campus abounds with Wi-Fi access and seemingly every student owns a laptop (and can therefore obtain the news online at will), there is no better way of ensuring our student body is informed than by providing each and every student with a free copy of a national newspaper.
The arguments against doing so fall into two categories: cost and the pervasiveness of Internet media.
Cost may actually prevent us from bringing back daily newspapers to campus, but it has no bearing on whether access to the newspaper betters our student body.
The argument for the superiority of Internet media is more complex, but still fails to stand up upon close consideration.
Internet sites devoted to the news generally promote insular and ideologically-driven thinking, and do so not by actually reporting much news themselves, but rather by culling news stories that fit their political bias of choice from more traditional media, like the newspaper.
These sites limit, rather than expand, people's thinking.
Secondly, and more importantly, the newspaper as a medium is far more practical than the Internet - it takes no time to boot up, can never fail because of a bad connection and can be taken comfortably anywhere.
Newspapers are still the most eminently sensible way of disseminating information to the public.
An ill-informed student body is a danger to Hamline.
New developments related to nearly every major are discussed within the pages of the newspaper, and students who are aware of them make the most substantive contributors to their classes.
Additionally, the role of any college is to prepare its students for life in the 'outside world,' and to that end it must provide them with as much information about it as possible.
Even if one disagrees with the editorial and opinion page of The New York Times, only a fool would contend that views expressed there are not worth considering.
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