It seems entirely appropriate, yet unfortunately uncommon, for a newspaper to publish a primer on the technique of intelligently reading print media. Certainly, it seems a facile task to pick up a paper and browse the articles, but the increasingly complex nature of our “globalized” world requires a more critical eye than that with which most of us are traditionally equipped.

When I was in elementary school, we learned “how to read a newspaper.” Predictably, the discussion centered primarily on the layout of the pages, the division of sections, the Associated Press writing style and industry-specific terminology. I imagine this is more tutoring than most Americans receive in the subject, in patent disregard of the newspaper’s continuing role as the most comprehensive mass-distributed source of information covering current events. Considering the institution’s obvious historical importance, this seems an area in which our public education system might be lacking.

Approximately 40 percent of this country’s population reads a newspaper daily—a stable characteristic for more than a decade, according to a Pew Research Center annual survey.

On the other hand, about 60 percent of the American public watch TV news daily.

However, structural limits ensure minimal coverage of any story, and the repetitious nature of the news cycle reduces the viewer’s knowledge of contemporary affairs to sound bites and factoids.

Despite this disproportion, and the fact that newspaper publishers perennially decry the shift in audience to other forms of media (television, radio, internet), print news’ demographic remains relatively unchanged over the past fifty years. Those who demand a deeper level of knowledge and a wider breadth of coverage will not be satisfied simply with the short stories on the television and radio.

Since you’re reading this, it’s a fairly safe bet that you fit the bill. But it is not merely enough to simply “read” the newspaper. One must engage with the process, unless the intent is to be swept along with the flow like a leaf in a stream. As much as I detest the term, I will for the sake of convenience suggest that “critical thinking” (or the lack thereof) is the most important step to be taken in the political self-realization of a people’s ethic. In order to transcend the passive dissatisfaction that pervades our atomized modern culture, we should actively encourage participatory avenues for interaction with traditional forms of mass media.

The advent of the internet fortunately provides a ready outlet for the need to comment and analyze these matters in a common forum. If we wish to look beyond the elementary education in and on newspapers that seems prevalent, there are a number of online resources available to enterprising self-edifying individuals interested in enriching their news interpretation skills.

To begin with, one can take a look at a piece published in Popular Science in 1986 by Walter Cronkite titled “How to Read a Newspaper.”  It’s concise and gives the reader very practical advice on more efficiently and effectively digesting news stories. Beyond the epistemic angle of analysis, he also suggests a rough outline of an ethic for news readers.

“News people have a responsibility,” Cronkite wrote. “And so do you. Ours is to report the news fairly, accurately and completely. Yours is to keep yourself informed everyday.”

That seems a decent tradeoff, and it is more possible than ever with the perpetually growing variety of online news sources, blogs, and web-based newscasts. The hyperlink interface of most informative online sources also intuitively integrates multiple sources to enable users to build a web of knowledge surrounding a particular subject or event quickly.

Unfamiliarity is no barrier to understanding, either. We are now able to instantly brush up on our history with a Wikipedia search, and compare different sources by virtue of news aggregators such as Google News. The breadth of knowledge available is actually quite astounding, and possibly even daunting, but we should not lose heart; any attempt to familiarize oneself with a new topic is almost always an encouraging experience.

Over the long-term, if we each make a commitment to personally interact with the news on a daily basis, it’s conceivable that the general understanding of society as a whole would be collectively raised. Not only would our online interactions provide more depth, but our discussions in person would take on a notably more intellectual form, and it would likely spur more direct involvement by the people in the affairs of their public institutions. But that is a duty which must be consciously accepted by each individual, lest the propagation of information become an undue obligation to serve a larger organization, rather than a personal recognition of community values and ethics.

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