There’s just something different about holding a newspaper in your hands instead of reading it online.
The physical newspaper is a treasure trove of unexpected information. At first glance, you can obviously see what’s important to editors on a front page. But you don’t know what you’re going to learn when you start flipping pages.
And learn you will. You could discover news about some fresh conflict in another part of the world, a rescue story in Texas, news about the death of someone who touched your life or a quirky story about someone’s pet alligator.
The point is this: The physical act of turning pages in a newspaper is an intellectual treat. It’s a great way to learn about your community and nation in random ways that are not controlled by some Internet algorithm.
Reading unexpected stories connects you in new ways to your home and neighbors.
Newspapers also provide a place every week or day where you can keep up with what your local, state and national governments are doing – or not doing. Newspapers are the great, longer-than-TV snippets that allow you to dive more deeply into a topic. They are, in one sense, the antithesis of Instagram or Facebook with their often misleading scraps of information spread by people who are trying to spin this or sell that – instead of focusing on truth and accountability.
Unfortunately for America, newspapers are withering. In Atlanta, the storied Journal-Constitution no longer prints a daily edition, now only showing up online. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette will close operations in May after two centuries of publications. And this week, we learned about cuts of more than 300 journalists at the legendary Washington Post – a decimation that will cripple its sports and international news coverage and make the newspaper a shell of its former bullishness.
This loss is much the same in weeklies across the nation. Between 2005 and 2025, some 2,843 non-daily newspapers closed, leaving 4,482 non-daily newspapers. In South Carolina, two counties – Allendale and Saluda – don’t have a local print news outlet, according to a Northwestern University tracking study.
Other papers that used to be daily, such as in Greenwood or Sumter, now print on just two or three days a week. And many weeklies have lost so much advertising revenue that their print editions are shadows of their former selves.
All of this goes to highlight the slow demise of newspapers and how that appears to be a symptom of what’s going on in a country where democracy and freedom are being challenged by intolerant, unfree, authoritarian Americans.
A vital, free press is essential for American democracy to thrive by observing and challenging what elected leaders are doing. Having a vibrant, free press delivers a truthful check on bad leaders – the number of whom have multiplied like gnats in the last year of the Trump administration. A free press bolsters accountability to ensure people are doing what they say they’re doing (too often, they aren’t).