Do Americans Still Read?

Back in the halcyon days of youth my we read to our parents. This was after they decided that they had been reading to us for long enough so it had became our turn.

Reading became a habit for me after I learned to piece together words into sentences in the first grade. Not long after this I began to dutifully go outside, no matter the weather, and retrieve the NY Times from the driveway. I may have only read the Sports pages, after a cursory glance at the front page, but it was reading and sports writers like Leonard Koppett and Dan Daniel were very literate and would be called bibliophiles today. Later in my life I would read Sam Lacy, W.C. Heinz, Ring Lardner, and Dick Young.

Leonard Koppett, New York Times

Sam Lacy, Washington Post

W.C. Heinz

By the time I reached High School I would read the Wall Street Journal my father brought home each night, after he had read it on the train from NYC. Vermont Royster wrote for the WSJ Editorial page in those days. he had studied Latin and Greek. He received two Pulitzer Prizes and his Christmas and Thanksgiving editorials were reprinted every years since he wrote them. 

Funny how no female sports writers are on my list. Mostly because they weren't allowed and when they were the treatment they endured was nothing short of a travesty.

I have often wondered what kind of journalism requires one to navigate the sweaty, smelly confines of a locker room? I guess that would be the definition of a Sports Writer.

Now we live in a more visual society as opposed to the tactile one of my youth, where the ink from the newspaper remained on your hands as a reminder of your reading endeavors. Children might still read to their parents today but it's probable from a tablet or phone. I'm not sure this is an improvement. What's more, at this risk of being labeled an incurable nostalgic, I would also say the quality of the writing isn't the same either. Whoever heard of a Sports Writer today who had studied Latin and Greek? No writers come to mind with this sort of pedigree, male or female. Though I am sure I could be proven wrong in maybe one or two instances nationwide. That's saying quite a bit as New York City area has 11 major sports team, including the Liberty of the Women's National Basketball Association.