The Slow Death of Newspapers and the Kindle

As if the newspapers didn't have enough problems, the last thing universities should do is discontinue their on-campus deliveries. One of my routines, started when I was an International Relations major my freshman year, was to read the New York Times every day. Papers were available in the dinning hall during breakfast, lunch, or better yet, the copies are delivered straight to your dorm's lobby.

If the slow decline of the newspaper industry wasn't bad enough, the slow economy is making it worse. Lehigh University, in an effort to cut back on costs, has decided to discontinue our student newspaper deliveries. The University slyly notified everyone throug a memo in the Daily Announcements email. This service provided free weekday copies of The USA Today, The New York Times, and Lehigh Valley's local newspaper, the Allentown Morning Call. The New York Times is especially popular on campus; some of my friends used to do the crosswords every morning.

This is a disappointment. Universities all around the nation participate in these programs. Unfortunately, the rough economy has forced everyone to revaluate their priorities. For newspapers it's just another nail in the coffin.

One possible option for making this situation better is to modify the remaining printed newspaper on campus, The Brown and White, to feature a broader scale of news. Unfortunately Lehigh is no Penn State in terms of sheer numbers: our journalism deptartment is relatively small and does not currently have the staffing to put out a paper like Penn State's Daily Collegian.

An even better solution: Kindles!

Amazon's newest eBook reader, the Kindle DX, has a large, high-contrast black and white screen and the ability to view PDFs as well as books from Amazon's own collection --including newspapers!.

I think Lehigh will eventually require every student to purchase a Kindle upon arrival. Upfront cost: about 300 to 400 dollars. Eventually, publishers will cave in to the Kindle's electronic abilities and charge less for textbooks: reducing the cost, I estimate, to 30 bucks a book.

200 dollars a semester sounds better than the 800 some students shell out now to get textbooks. In addition, all the book buying occurs wirelessly and electronically; the books are downloaded straight to your Kindle. No more waiting up to 2 weeks to get used books! Better yet: move to an open courseware model like MIT and make all the course materials free and/or available as PDFs!