Newspapers in Education

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Newspapers in Education will be observed in March this year. This is a cooperative effort between newspapers and schools for instruction, and the newspaper may sponsor teacher-education programs including curriculum materials as resources for student learning. Newspapers often provide copies of the paper to the schools for use in the classroom at a reduced rate.

A newspaper may be a corporately-owned enterprise, part of a larger company that owns and operates many newspapers such as the Gannett company (with over 100 daily newspapers and nearly 1,000 weekly newspapers), or it might be owned by a single individual, a family, or a company in a small town.

Newspapers have been part of the American society since our beginnings as a nation. Local, state, federal, and international events have been covered by reporters prior to the American Revolution. However, today the Internet and social media have driven many smaller papers out of business, and even some larger newspapers are struggling because of the 24/7 news cycle that exists in the electronic media.

Often, a newspaper is the only source of local information in communities that are far from radio and television outlets and rely on cable systems to reach rural and small town America. From stories about community activities to local sports, area businesses, church services, births and obituaries, road construction, politics, and, of course, education, the local paper plays a vital role in making people aware of what is going on in their hometown.

In their efforts to create an “informed citizenry,” newspapers are critically important in the role they play. Students may have Internet access, smart phones, laptops, tablets, and social media, but the power of the newspaper press to gather and report local events in-depth is still relevant in the daily and weekly lives of people everywhere.

Newspapers may no longer exist in the future as new generations embrace electronic sources of information and ignore printed materials, however, until that day, they are still a primary source of information for local news.

I had the privilege of writing a weekly newspaper column for a couple of years as a guest contributor for a Gannett-owned newspaper. It was great training in writing to length, copy fitting, and getting to the point.

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