What is really wrong with the newspaper though?

This morning in class we offered our opinions on an article that ran in the Free Press this weekend written by a first year.

The article was titled, "what's wrong with the newspaper?" This point of view article was written due to the recent layoffs the Free Press has made.

First of all I applaud Stefanie for taking on this task. Never would I have ever imagined myself writing for the Free Press just weeks into my first year of CreComm. That takes some balls.

Although I'm a firm believer in, "everyone is entitled to their own opinion," and so I do have a slight issue with being spoken for. If I didn't say it, I don't appreciate anyone putting words in my mouth.

Countless times Stef used, "we" in her article and when she included "we" she was talking about the general younger demographic. Me. And my classmates too.

She was right on some points. Our demographic does use social media a little more than our elders, I won't dispute that. What I will dispute is her claiming, "we" don't like to read longer pieces in the newspaper anymore, "we" just want short form, 140 character tweets and stuff like that.

In our discussion as a class there were some of us agreeing, yes we like tweets because a tweet can generally sum up a story, but after realizing what that story was about wouldn't you want to click on that link and read more? In Stefanie's case no. In most of my classmates cases, yes.

We've been told as students since we started this program that "print and journalism are dying," but just because the larger newspaper outlets may need to make some cuts due to social media growing strong doesn't mean "we" should completely disregard the smaller local papers we have around us that produce just as good or even better content than the Free Press or the Sun.

Many of us chose journalism as our major because we have a passion for writing and a strong belief that there's a place for our writing out there. Somewhere.

Please don't assume that us "kids" don't like to read the newspaper just because another "kid" argued her point in a very flowery and effective way. We all feel our own way about news today and how it reaches us so don't categorize us without asking us personally. It's not fair.

So I'm sorry if you agree that journalism is dying- but I don't and if that's the route you want to take than I'll stay on the other side of the road and go my own way.