Wednesday, January 16, 2019 // The Statement
7B
Wednesday, February 27, 2019 // The Statement

7B

M

y typical Ann Arbor week-
end: I’ve made the trek down
to Main Street to one of my
favorite coffee shops and, before I get
started on schoolwork, I sit with a fresh
mug of black coffee and a crisp copy of
the newspaper. That’s right: the news, on
paper. Hard-copy news is still alive and
well.
I joined The Michigan Daily on a whim
when a friend ardently convinced me,
and one year later, here I am in the posi-
tion of senior copy editor. As part of the
copy section at The Daily, I now spend
each week fact-checking and editing
the grammar of articles. Looking back,
I realize I joined not for the enthusiasm
of editing or even the chance to belong to
The Daily community, but out of a sub-
conscious passion for preserving the art
of printed news — no app, email or Twit-
terverse sound-bitten form of news.
Today, society innovatively manages to
stay informed and connected. However,
it’s rare to see college students and mil-
lennials picking up and reading a physi-
cal newspaper like my grandparents do
every morning at the breakfast table. For
me, newspapers are the last true bastion
of reliable information in an age of ques-
tionable online sources. As a copy editor,
I understand the pertinence of not only
grammatical editing but the absolute
necessity of fact-checking for accurate
information.
Ironically, I’m writing this article to
an intended audience of college students
and millennials who probably won’t
actually read it. I’m sending a message in
a bottle into the ocean hoping someone
will eventually find it buried in the sand
on a distant shore. This metaphor might
be extreme, but you get the message (pun
intended).
Most students, myself included, mind-
lessly scroll through their phones the
way apps have trained us to do. A print
newspaper forces us to stop and smell
the roses. It distracts us in a wholesome
way and forces us to reflect — even for
just a minute of our day — on what else
is going on in the world, without see-
ing these events through the unfocused
lenses of social media sources. Though
not impossible, it’s difficult to quickly
and frantically skim the printed news in
a rush to class or while walking through
the crowds of State Street. A newspaper
demands our full attention — a concept
most of us reserve for binge-watching
“Friends.”

A newspaper says more than the words
on its pages. The voice of established pub-
lications such as The New York Times,
The Washington Post and The Chicago
Tribune all have specific styles that
effectively reveal the inner truths of a
location and subculture. The newspaper
inherently conveys emotion and mood
and has a personal effect on the reader.
When touring colleges as a senior in high
school, I always picked up the colleges’
student newspapers to assess the campus
vibe and to understand the voice of its
students.
Not surprisingly, one of my favor-
ite parts of my day during my summer
internship experience in Washington,
D.C., was reading Express, a free daily
publication from The Washington Post,
on the Metro every morning. It served
not only as a source for the current state
of the union and political shenanigans,
but also became my personal guide to

the city. The “Weekend Pass” section
highlighted destinations of interest, local
events, upcoming concerts and the new-
est museum exhibits in a way no website
or friend recommendation could do. I
found myself ending up everywhere from
the steps of the National Portrait Gallery
for the free Fall Out Boy concert before
the Capitals’ playoff game to the Hirsh-
horn Museum for the Georg Baselitz
exhibit ¬¬¬— all of this as a result of read-
ing the news.
If the news is so subtly transformative
in our daily lives, then being involved
with The Daily as copy editor is all the
more transformative to my own life.
While working at The Daily (and in an
effort to keep current for my political
science classes), I have refined my news-
reading habits and become inspired to
declare an English major with a political
science minor. Being involved so closely
with the news introduced me to my own

curiosity and excitement for reading that
transcends the confines of the classroom
and the realm of academia. I came to
appreciate a news article as an art form,
much like that of great literature, poetry
or lyrics.
Though not truly an aging dinosaur
yet, newspapers just might have a come-
back in our generation, much in the same
way vinyl record players and Polaroid
pictures have cluttered the dorm rooms
of college students. I can only hope.
So as I finish my coffee shop session of
weekend studying, I will leave behind my
paged-through copy of The Daily with
the intention that someone else might
pick it up, take the time to read it, then
leave it for the next person. Either that or
it will end up on the bottom of their new
puppy’s training cage. Regardless, I will
continue to do my best to initiate a new
reader — even if it’s just one hard copy at
a time.

BY REECE MEYHOEFER, SENIOR COPY EDITOR

Copy That: To whom it
may concern

ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTINE JEGARL