Newspaper.  All the work goes into the bundle of papers that are delivered right to your doorstep, yet they are not being read by many people. The tangible and local feeling that many people get from handling the newspaper is being forgotten. It raises the question of how people are getting their news now, or are they?

Peter Dryke, an English  teacher at A-West explains that he used to order the paper, but about six months ago he stopped ordering the paper for a couple of reasons.

“The delivery was not good,” explains Dryke. “They threw it in the street, in the mud puddles, so now I just get online updates.” While delivery is a factor for most people, the availability and readiness of online news is also a factor. 

Dryke, a former newspaper reporter himself, says that the readiness of online news is “a possibility [for the lack of getting the paper delivered], but a lot of people like the tangible product of having a newspaper.” Dryke also believes that more people are using online news instead of the newspaper because “subscription rates are so high.”

Dryke is not the only one that uses online news, however.

 A-West freshman Micah Johnson does not usually look at the news but will look at online updates for basketball. “I go on Instagram,” explains Johnson, who usually uses his phone to get news about basketball.

Johnson also explains that in the morning, the T.V. in his house is on, showing the weather, but other than that, he doesn’t pay much attention to the news. Johnson says that if there is a big event, it is usually on his Instagram feed and from there, he looks up the story online to learn more about it. He doesn’t feel a need to read the paper or online articles for the news that he is interested in.

Another A-West student, Tucker Deal, explains that his family doesn’t order the newspaper, but he will watch the news “every once in a while” for things like the weather. His parents, however, watch the news a few times a week.

Most students, including Deal, tend to get their news from social media and online sources as opposed to the newspaper, which has changed a lot compared to adults when they were kids, whose traditional way of getting the news was just through the paper.

While Johnson and Deal get the news in a more “modern” style, Dryke explains how when he was a child, it was a little different. “We always got the newspaper ,and we always watched it ]the news] as a family on T.V.,” says Dryke. “I didn’t have any online newsfeed,” he adds.  

The overall trend that is that newspapers are being read less and less, and online news articles are being read more and more, but for adults like Dryke, it is not the same as it used to be.

“These kids are so obsessed with their media and their phones that they don’t look at formal sources,” says Dryke. He explains that some kids don’t even know it’s there and emphasizes the quality of the newspaper or formal online sources. “I guess quicker is better but reading it on a screen is not the same.”