To me, nothing compares to reading a newspaper in its print form. I come by this tradition honestly—growing up in the household of a journalist, my sisters and I would argue over who would read which section during the half-an-hour rush before school. During my freshman year at Wesleyan, I immediately joined the staff of The Argus and found myself at ease with peers similarly enthralled by the journalistic writing form. To me, a newspaper is a necessity, and so I admit that I cannot objectively report on this issue.

I write today in support of The New York Times’ new digital subscription initiative. Starting yesterday, the Times will now allow online access to twenty articles a month for free; beyond this amount, people will have to pay. The costs are not huge—ranging from 15 to 35 dollars a month—and student discounts will soon be offered. If you cannot afford or do not want a subscription, you can still access Times articles through search engines, blogs, and social media even after you reach your monthly quota of 20 page views. And there is no added cost if, like I do, you subscribe for basic home-delivery. Arguably it is a small price to pay for the invaluable public service that a free press provides.

I have a luxurious lifestyle this semester—and by that I mean no class before noon—and so I have the time to sit and read the morning news. When having a newspaper in its print form, I find that I read articles in greater depth than when accessing the material on-line. I find myself tracking the names of New York Times reporters, following them from each city and country in which they write, and assessing page layout and placement of articles. I am not merely nostalgic for a passing age, but am genuinely concerned with preserving the integrity of American media.

Modern media is by no means a perfect institution; there is much to criticize about sensationalist and subjective news services that produce only for profit, distort reports, and constrain discourse. But this is not the full story. Responsible newspaper reporting provides the public with essential sources of information, investigation, analysis, social empathy, and mobilization. There is a craft to creating and editing an article—a respect for researching facts and organizing perspectives in order to form an objective and enduring account. There is a need for newspapers—for a defined public sphere for promoting interaction between different social groups and classes. And there is a cost to thinking this can come for free—namely, the erosion of a stalwart civic institution as an independent and transparent check on authority.

It is important to improve the Internet as a means for increasing the dissemination of information. The Times describes the new digital subscriptions as “an investment in our future;” the actual financial merit of this system I cannot yet assess. But although blogs and social media are valuable sources, they do not have the same institutional responsibility as a free and independent press. In the past few decades, local newspapers have folded, investigative bureaus have closed, and the number of foreign correspondents has been reduced. As a vocation, journalism is not for the feeble—as daily reports of harassment in Libya and Russia detail—nor is it for the profit seeker. But as the current debate over public financing for NPR demonstrates, it is imperative for independent news organizations to have steady funding if they are to survive. If you and I don’t bear this necessary cost, who will?    

Berger is a member of the class of 2012 and The Argus Opinions Editor.