By Amanda DeCamp
Sometime between reality television’s arrival on primetime, the introduction of Sidekicks to Christmas wish lists and the turn of the 21st century, young people stopped reading the news. I see students in class cramming to read article leads before a news quiz. It’s an enormous onus to pick up a paper and find out what is happening in the world.
Fellow classmates complain how dirty it makes their hands-how big, clunky and annoying a newspaper is. These are journalism majors, a major that focuses on delivering the news and even reading it once in awhile. I too have complained about the newspaper, it’s small print and the smudges left on my fingers after perusing through it. One who complains of such things might consider a magazine, like Time or Newsweek, smudge-free and abundant with pictures that make reading much more appealing.
I find myself watching the news only when necessary, or as I get ready in the morning. I even set my alarm clock radio to Talk Radio, in hopes that some issues of the day will miraculously make their way to my ears. The University has a complementary copy of Newsday and The New York Times for every student, yet the stacks remain high. Those in Dempster Hall are full of previously viewed newspapers, strewn about by students needing them for class, and then dropping the burden off when done.
Young people do not read newspapers anymore and barely watch the news. Instead of asking a fellow peer what he or she thinks of Bush’s reauthorization of the Patriot Act or about the plans to reconstruct Nassau Coliseum, one is more apt to inquire about the latest celebrity marriage or televesion drama.
Perhaps it is out of fear. People have developed a fear of being intolerant to another’s opinions so our generation has grown to speak naught of religion and politics. Instead of freedom of choice and freedom of religion, it is freedom from all opinion. Celebrity “news,” if we can call it that will not offend our neighbor, unless they happen to be a scientologist, whereas shedding an opinion on the president, the war or even, dare I say, abortion is sure to irk someone in the room. So we stopped, or actually, we never even began. Professors shed their opinions all over the classroom, and students take it all in and spit nothing back.
The invention of iPods made our step have a little more bounce to it, but they have made our minds empty. We can tell you every word to any given OAR song, but we cannot tell you much about foreign policy. Things have changed drastically over the last two centuries. In 1848, 300 men and women came to Seneca Falls. NY to sign a treaty ending discrimination against women. When this was signed, yet not truly granted, women did not stop, they continued to protest and rally until they were granted the right to vote with the passing of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Rosa Parks began a boycott of bus companies in the 1950s when blacks were forced to sit in the back of the bus. In the 1960s a new American was invented, the hippie, who protested America’s participation in the Vietnam War. Students began strikes, protests and sit-ins to voice their opinion. Now, with the exception of the brave men and women who sign up to fight in our military and protect our country, students do not do a thing for or against the war in Iraq. Maybe it’s apathy, maybe it’s fear or maybe due to the lack of reading the news. It’s pure ignorance that we do not participate in politics.
For those of you reading this article now, you might grow very angry that I am accusing an entire generation of being ignorant and uninformed, because after all, you are actually reading a newspaper. Sorry to you, but unfortunately you cannot make up for the vast majority of your peers who lack your interest. Blame it on Sparknotes, or some other website or program that does work for you. Journalist majors, as well as many others will realize they have to read not only one but many newspapers in one day and somehow, some way stay informed. News is history’s first draft, and at some point our generation will play catch-up.