Lack of newspaper reading hurts civil discourse

I have been a voracious reader of newspapers since I learned to read as a 7-year-old growing up in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where we received by rural mail carrier the daily edition of the Staunton News Leader. I believe part of the decline in civil discourse today is the lack of newspaper reading among our citizens.

I am retired so I can choose what to do, within limits, with my days. The first thing I do with the morning coffee is to read the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, starting now with the editorial and op-ed sections, then sports, then news (a change from earlier days when it was sports, news then editorials).

I thought the Friday, Aug. 25, editorials and op-ed sections were thought-provoking. I like to read guest columns from other national writers so I feel resentment sometimes that Gary Smith and Dana D. Kelley take up space on Fridays. Not that Friday. I enjoyed the humorous column of Smith, as I always do, and the challenging column of Kelley. That column is worthy of nationwide distribution. It has to do with Confederate monuments.

It has me reminiscing of my high school days in southern Delaware where we received by rural mail the Philadelphia Record. On Sunday, my father or I would drive into Bridgeville and choose a Sunday edition, or often two, from the Philadelphia Record (liberal), Philadelphia Bulletin (moderate), or Philadelphia Inquirer (conservative). When I was a student at the University of Delaware, the New York Times Sunday edition was a requirement in a political science course I took. Today I get the Times Sunday edition along with the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Sunday edition, both shrinking in size. I think the New York Times is stilt a great paper despite the Twitter disparagement of it by POTUS. The closing of either of these papers would be a real downer for me. GEORGE A. BRADLEY Springdale