Buy a Newspaper

Every day, as a rule, would you, please? Either that, or subscribe. Papers everywhere are having difficulties holding on to readers, and in Holland there are calls for government support for newspapers to ensure a diverse and vibrant array of news media. Better, of course, would be if responsible citizens were to make that unnecessary. You know, all those folks who believe that a democratic society with informed citizens would be a pretty good idea? The internet is great, but you can't have a genuinely informed citizenry without lots of professional journalists looking into things, being experts at things, full time. Papers can put material on line, but if we would all rely on the free stuff there, they could not maintain their staffs, their networks of correspondents. Same with relying on tv news. And don't get me started on those free rags you can find at all Dutch train stations these days ("readers" of those things: please don't think you're reading "the paper" every day; instead, how about feeling offended by the crap these things have to offer?). It's a pretty damn good value also, everything you get from a real paper in return for your buck or Euro-twentyfive or less. Can most people get by most days without one? Sure. However, for civil society really to work, you need a lot of people doing the right thing--this is one of those right things. If you want to see the writing on the wall, look at what's about to happen with the Detroit Free Press, "on guard for 177 years" and the Detroit News: Detroit's major dailies will no longer deliver a regular paper every day--it's just one example.