You Have Duty To Read The Newspaper.

AND NOT JUST BECAUSE there will be current events questions on the first exam.

You need to read the NEWSPAPER (not just the online version) to help ensure the future of the craft. Like Sam Zell says below, the realities are that journalism is a business. And you need to buy into the system.

How do you convince people that they need to pay for journalism when journalism is free online?

Well, how about this for an argument: if media companies can't afford journalists, then you wind up with crappy products with useless content. Here is an example: "Olympics safe from foreign prostitutes, Day says."

Read the story. It is essentially a rehashed press statement from a government official. There is no digging for the truth, no original reporting, no deep questioning of the source.

If journalists don't do their jobs well, the public suffers.

Then again, I may be biased since I'm actually a journalist.