I will protect your pensions. Nothing about your pension is going to change when I am governor. - Chris Christie, "An Open Letter to the Teachers of NJ" October, 2009

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Why Newspapers Are Dying

A random thought for a late Easter evening:

Newspapers, sadly, are dying.

Newspapers need readers.

Who teaches kids how to read? Teachers.

So if I ran a newspaper, and I needed more readers...

I don't think it would help me to piss off the people who teach other people how to read, would it?

Yeah, probably not.

So if we want more readers, let's bash teachers, 'cause they're the people who teach kids how to read! Because... uh... em...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, this is knuckle-headed even for here. Today's kids have texts, twitter, and the news of the web in front of them all day, reading, compared to a generation ago.

Ya think maybe that is why newspapers are dying? That whole digital intraweb thingie we hear about?

And what is the subtle threat here, y'all are going to stop teaching kids to read in protest? Has that already started in the inner cities?

Anonymous said...

Wow, this is knuckleheaded even for this blog. Kids today have screens and keyboards in front of them all day long compared to a generation ago.

Unknown said...

Not ALL kids have access to technology. And if they do they don't know how to use it to read. Texting and twittering are NOT reading. Your narrow view ignores the depth and breadth of reading processes and development.

'Reading' means comprehension, inferring meaning, interpreting purpose,predicting outcomes, constructing theories from scientific studies,understanding plots and plots within plots, historical context, past, present and future timelines, foreshadowing, character development and inter- relationships, composition, and much more...

Stop pretending you know how to teach reading- you clearly don't. Go join up with the Broadies and other bidness sociopaths who think they know how to conquer our profession but wouldn't survive 10 min in a real classroom.

Anonymous said...

It was a dumb post. JJ tries to whip up self empowerment sometimes that makes no sense. "Don't piss of the teachers, or we won't teacher the kids to read and they won't buy newspapers." Because Tom Moran ticked him off? Do you think Tom called an emergency editorial meeting the next AM with the strategic planning department and said "omigosh, we can't piss off the teachers!"

17 year old kids aren't going to the corner to get a Star Ledger from the box. And by the time they get to a newspaper's target demographic, paper newspapers will be gone. Not because Tom Moran pissed of JJ, but because the printing and distribution costs and general pain in the ass of reading and recycling daily newspapers are being buggywhipped into extinction by the internet and NJ.com and instant news and sports with video highlights, etc.

Anonymous said...

Why bring urine into this? Let's all examine our diction! There are other ways of saying that we are angry.

Set an example for the kids.