"The Newspaper Is Dying"

Faced with the seemingly sad news, Andrew Potter responds: "Hooray for Democracy." He explains this subtitle in an editorial that argues against Cass Sunstein's points about how democracy is dying.

Here are all the word lists to support the reading of Grade 11 Unit 3's texts from SpringBoard's Common Core ELA series: Media in a Democracy, Daily Me, The Newspaper Is Dying, Facebook Photos Sting, Abolish high school football, Facing Consequences, Time to raise the bar, New Michigan Graduation Requirements, Why I Hate Cell Phones, Editorial Cartoons, Let's Hear It for the Cheerleaders, Girl Moved to Tears, In Depth, but Shallowly, Advice to Youth, The War Prayer, Gambling in Schools, How to Poison the Earth
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. myriad
    too numerous to be counted
    Each year may put another loop in the newspaper's death spiral, but the overall consumption of news is on the rise, almost entirely thanks to the myriad online sources.
  2. demise
    the time when something ends
    In certain quarters, though, there is growing concern that the demise of the newspaper is a threat to democracy itself.
  3. appeal
    be attractive to
    The argument goes something like this: the economic logic of mass circulation meant a newspaper had to try to appeal to as many potential readers as possible.
  4. foster
    promote the growth of
    This fostered the democratic values of curiosity, enlightenment and toleration, and the worry is that if the newspaper declines, so might democracy.
  5. tendency
    an inclination to do something
    But, for the most part, it isn't a problem (for democracy anyway), since we routinely come into contact with so many people from so many different groups that the tendency toward polarization in one is at least somewhat tempered by our encounters with others.
  6. biased
    favoring one person or side over another
    For decades, progressive critics have complained about the anti-democratic influence of the mass media, and that newspapers present a selective and highly biased picture of the world, promoting pseudo-arguments that give the illusion of debate while preserving the status quo.
  7. lumber
    move heavily or clumsily
    And now that the Internet is poised to cast these lumbering dinosaurs of black ink and dead trees into the pit of extinction, we're supposed to say hang on, what about democracy?
  8. substantial
    fairly large
    The PEJ also found a substantial disconnect between the issues and events that dominate the news hole (e.g. the Iraq surge, the massacre at Virginia Tech) and what the public wants to see covered--issues such as education, transportation, religion and health.
  9. absorption
    the mental state of being preoccupied by something
    What this suggests is, aside from some failings of newspapers, that readers go online in search of less bias, not the self-absorption of the Daily Me.
  10. confirmation
    additional proof that something that was believed is correct
    Nothing about how people consume media online suggests they are looking for confirmation of pre-existing biases.
Created on Fri Nov 14 13:05:06 EST 2014 (updated Sun Nov 16 00:38:31 EST 2014)

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