Recently there have been several letters to the editor in this newspaper bemoaning the impending end of the print edition. I understand the sense of loss, as I, too, was once a longtime print subscriber/addict.
But the online version offers certain advantages. For one thing, it saves all the trees that would otherwise be needed for print editions. It provides easy access/retrieval using the power of the internet and readers can easily adjust print size for greater readability.
What matters most to me, though, are the reader comments, available only with the online version. Such comments can greatly enrich an otherwise impoverished news story.
News stories typically have a certain perspective, giving a coherent, easily digested account of some event. Sometimes they cast a somewhat wider net, following the “two sides” journalistic formula. While for many readers that might be sufficient, others may be more curious. For them, reader comments offer interesting debates that provide new information and perspectives and foster critical thinking.
The best example of such enrichment, in my view, are the reader comments attached to articles published in The New York Times. Typically, there are hundreds of them per article, and I often learn more about a topic from these comments than I do from the article itself.
Here in the Salt Lake metro area, we’re fortunate to have two quality newspapers that have different readerships with different political leanings. While these two papers may cover the same news event similarly, the reader comments typically offer radically different perspectives. By shuttling back and forth between such accounts, I find it enriches my understanding of the topic and its reception by different readers.
My advice to nostalgic print subscribers: Give the online edition a try. Like me, you may come to actually prefer it.
Tom Huckin, Salt Lake City
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