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Quindlen offers insight into reading and journalism
There hasn’t been much good news lately about the future of newspapers and reading in the United States, but not everyone’s ready to declare defeat in the face of changing times, Pulitzer-Prize winner Anna Quindlen told a UB audience on Wednesday.
“Reports of the death of the newspaper and of the book during our lifetime have been greatly exaggerated,” Quindlen said, paraphrasing a famous quip by author Mark Twain upon reading his own obituary, accidently printed in a major newspaper.
“This is a very good time for readers and reading,” she said.
A Newsweek columnist, social commentator and best-selling author, Quindlen came to UB as part of the 2008-09 Distinguished Speakers Series. The event attracted an audience of about 1,500 to the Center for the Arts, North Campus.
Despite opinions to the contrary, Quindlen pointed out that a Gallup Poll recently revealed that more than one in four Americans consider reading at or near the top of their list of favorite leisure activities. Gallup also found 84 percent of Americans say they’re currently reading a book today, compared to about 18 percent in 1954, she said, citing rising rates in literacy, leisure time and access to affordable printed materials.
The phenomenal success of the “Harry Potter” books by British author J.K. Rowling also suggests a new generation of children are being turned on to the pleasures of the written word, she said.
“[Reading] is the ultimate democratic act of a democratic country,” she said. “Reading is a pathway to another world—a world without geographic boundaries or class boundaries or even the steep risers of time. In my mind, in a democracy, it is more of a threat to cut library budgets than defense budgets. The free exchange of ideas is the bedrock of freedom.”
Although many recall the “good old days” when television had only three major networks, authoritative anchors delivered the evening news once a day and daily broadcasts ended at 2 a.m., Quindlen said the news industry really wasn’t all that better off during the early days of television.
About 50 years ago, most newspapers had no lifestyle section, no opinion page and no science reporting, she said. A focus on facts alone—and a notable absence of stories about minorities, the poor and other marginal populations—meant newspapers were limited to straightforward stories about sports, news and “not much else.” It wasn’t until radio and television came along that print journalists had to innovate in order to survive, she said, noting that gave newspapers a broader perspective, more colorful language and a profusion of stories on topics that previously had been ignored. Today, cable television and the Internet again are spurring innovation in newsrooms across the country.
In addition, Quindlen noted that prior to these new mediums, audiences’ access to different perspectives was limited. When she was a child, she said the citizens of the Soviet Union were portrayed as “ghouls” bent on destroying the American way of life. Now, technology provides people access to a less-filtered view of our country’s “enemies,” and many realize that the people of nations such as Iraq aren’t all that different from themselves.
“When we write about the lives of ordinary people, whether of New Orleans or Beijing or Buffalo, we’re inviting readers to take the words, the images and the facts, and assemble out of them a portrait of life,” said Quindlen. “The payoff to that is potentially great… reading promotes empathy, and empathy is the key to humanity.”
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