Essay #1

If I had to choose one word to describe my newspaper reading habits, it would be, "POOR". The very few times I read a newspaper were when I lived with my Dad. I would read the Star Ledger then and probally have only read 5 or 6 newspapers before the Wall Street Journal in my whole life. The reason why I never read any newspapers is simply because I got all my news online. At first I recieved my news from CNN.COM or FOXNEWS.COM but now I get a lot of my news from Drudgereport.com. The reason why I like the Drudgereport is because one can see a combination of different articles and sometimes even get news that the mainstream media doesnt report or will report it much later.

My main opinion about newspapers is that they are important for the country. The reason why I believe this is because the more newspapers people read, the more informed people are in general. I personally dont have any need in newspapers since I read all my news online but I do hope newspapers stay in circulation. If I lived in a big city like NYC, I think I would read newspapers while traveling in mass transit like the subways or buses, but since I drive everywhere in Orlando I just see no use in reading a paper. So I see newspapers as being a bigger advantage only when living in a big city.

Using the Wall Street Journal to learn about mass communication is an excellent idea. I believe one learns a lot more using a newspaper than a textbook because one gets up-to-date information. A text book is written at least a year prior and therefore being outdated. My expectations for this class is to learn about mass media and guide me toward my journalism career. I do feel the WSJ will meet these expectations but I do believe in order to have total balance we should also use the New York Times because it shows a more left view while the WSJ shows a more right view. I dont think these views are reflected in the articles we read in the WSJ since its more related to mass media communication but I do believe if we had the NYT it would be perfect.