A Love letter to Newspapers

As we all know, newspapers are an endangered species in this era of the Internet. Here I won’t go into the many important reasons that Internet news cannot and should not replace print journalism (but I do note that much of the news on the Internet is taken directly from in-print newspapers; who else does investigations and reporting in depth?). Supplement, yes; replace, no. Here I just want to write a little love letter to newspapers. I have read and enjoyed newspapers since I was a child; I read them daily, and feel deprived and twitchy without them. When I lived in India as a child, we took an English language newspaper called, if I remember rightly, the Madras Mail. When my family moved to Michigan, we read the Detroit Free Press, and I continued reading it for all the years I lived in Michigan, and even occasionally in the years after I left; I greeted it as an old friend when I went back during summer weeks at my parents’ lakeside cottage or visits to my friend in Ann Arbor. When I moved to San Francisco, I started reading the San Francisco Chronicle, and have read it ever since. The Chronicle is now rather sadly thin and diminished, but I am very fond of it, and can’t do without it. I do read The New York Times occasionally, and subscribe to its Book Review, and I read other newspapers when I travel, but my day in, day out newspaper is the Chronicle, and I am very loyal to it. What is better than reading the morning paper with one’s morning coffee? My husband and I amicably divide the sections, and then trade. The bulkier Sunday paper with its lovely supplements (magazines, book review, travel and food sections, comics, etc.) is a special pleasure. It’s a great way to ease into the new day. I love the physical aspect of holding the paper in my hands; I even love the smell of newsprint, although in recent years I have developed a slight allergy to the smell, just as my late father did; however, a few sneezes can't stop me from reading newspapers! I hope that there are enough of us that feel so passionate about, and loyal to, print newspapers that they will survive and prosper.