http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/05/new_orleans_becomes_largest_us_city_without_daily_newspaper_36_residents_without_internet.html

I’ve been meaning to post this for some time now.

Basically, a major city is scaling back its printed newspapers and are only reporting online. Now, this bothers me. Forget that this city is largely composed of minorities with a large portion being poor. Let’s forget that (though, I really have not forgotten this at all and is the whole premise of me wanting to write about it). I ask you to forget this fact not because it is unimportant, but because in this case it shouldn’t be a color thing. This is a thing of news and important media not being easily accessible to ALL residents of a community. This is a problem because there is a large portion of the community who are poor. Most people’s perception of others is closely linked with how they view society from their world. In most people’s world/mind – people are online, tech savvy, have the internet and computer at home, are online reading the news, or have a Kindle/iPad/tablet and read the NY Times on their way to work. The unemployment rate is getting better for everyone and those that aren’t getting jobs aren’t getting them because they aren’t trying… BIG FAT NEGATIVE. 

There is still a good portion of the population without access to a computer or internet at home. There are still people without smart phones (though that number is diminishing). There are people who rely on printed news for their information in the community, nation, world, etc. Without a printed version of news, how would these people get important information? A library perhaps. Well, maybe, but from my neighborhood alone I can tell you – we have one library. They do not get printed newspapers anymore and they only allow you computer access once daily for 30 minutes. They are open odd times – times that I cannot keep track of because they are continually being cut.

This is injustice at its finest… who knew we news was a privilege…

notjustmythoughts