The kids don't even know what they are

I remember my sophomore year of high school (late '80s), in my Intro to Business class, we were given something like $1,000 in pretend money to put in the stock market.

Each week, we'd have to bring in the stock tables from the most recent paper, and my dad would get POed because he wouldn't have the business section.

I ended up making the most money, and got a prize of a couple of bonus points on my grade for the class that quarter.

While everyone else either lost money, or made a couple hundred bucks tops, I made over $2K. I put my pretend $1,000 on Gulf & Western stock, figuring that since they owned the Knicks, Rangers and MSG, that they were a pretty prosperous company to invest in.

 

Kids also on't know why we call a particular golf club a 3-wood. Newspapers will be like that soon. They'll know what a newspaper is; they just won't have any idea why "paper" is in its name.

 

I had the opposite thing happen with a high school coach today. This coach is relatively young, probably in his 30's, and is fantastic at calling in his games. After I covered his game today, he told me he always calls us and never calls the television stations because he doesn't care one way or the other if his team is on television, but he wants his girls to always be in the newspaper when they have a game. That was pretty cool.

As for this, I don't think it's that big of a deal. Most kids don't read much at that age no matter what generation they were. I was an exception, starting my morning with the Washington Post from when I was eight, but most kids aren't like that. As they grow up, they're more willing to read.

 

I've been sitting down with the sports section and breakfast every morning since about 4th grade...still remember some of my favorite writers from back in that period...Oregon kid, so it was Terry Frei and George Pasaro.

 

The reminiscing, though lovely, isn't the point...
I too, read.
I also used to go to a bookstore to buy a novel.
I also used to go to Blockbuster to rent a VHS.
Also, old habits of mine my kids wouldn't think to do.

 

The weird thing is, since I do both, is that it is demonstrably more time-consuming to look up all the scores you want on the Internet than to just read the damn paper -- especially as sports Web sites get crammed with more advertising software that gum up their works. Using ESPN.com can be torture.
This applies to newspaper Web sites, too. The Washington Post site simply doesn't function on my day job PC, and slows my home PC to a crawl.

 

I'm 23, have done all of those and the only reason I stopped renting movies is I found that it's cheaper to buy them used. But I still go to bookstores to buy books, as do all of my siblings. I'm sure we're not the only ones.

 

I was teaching in a fourth grade class for two months. I have been subbing and freelancing for the past couple of years. The fourth graders had no interest in the stories I wrote for newspapers. They couldn't relate. They don't see their friends reading newspapers, their parents reading, their family members reading. Not reading newspapers is a trend that started with the previous generation. Newspapers are 20 years behind in trying to figure out how to become relevant again.
But when I showed the fourth graders my stories on ESPN.com, all of a sudden that was impressive. I'm not sure if they were more impressed that their teacher was on ESPN or that I was writing for a website they all had heard of.
In any event, kids don't know what newspapers are. Their parents have no interest in newspapers. It makes for a bad combination for the future of newspapers. But the Internet is alive and well, and still not financially viable.

 

We got our first family computer when I was 13...so I had "read" newspapers plenty before then. "Reading" being a loose term--more like skimming the ads, checking the sports page, looking at the comics, etc.

In college though, read newspapers every day. Our school library had 20-or-so national newspapers and a large group of weekly foreign language newspapers. For a while, I would read the local paper every day at work, and at least two (one in English, one in German) when I should have been studying.

However, when I moved to Florida, the last thing I thought about was subscribing to a newspaper. As a consumer, it's silly to pay for something you can get for free.

 

I show them my story on our athletics website, they're intrigued. I show them our webcast of the game on our website, they move forward in their seats. I show them the videos of our preview and postgame videos of me interviewing coaches and players, their mouths drop open.

On their 8X8 Smartboard in the classroom.

Hell, who needs paper? Teachers don't even need chalk.