Earlier this week, I picked up The Dallas Morning News to see if my prayers were answered and my Army post ended up on the base closure list. Alas, while God hears all prayers, sometimes His answer is no.

But combing through the paper (home to a recent circulation scandal, layoffs, and Mary Mapes’ husband) was an eye-opener for me, given the ongoing dialogue over sagging sagging newspaper circulation.

A mantra common among journalism sites in the wake of the latest numbers is that too much news choice is in reality a bad thing for the public. The logic, if it can be labeled as such, is that people who pick and choose their news via the Internet and talk radio are shutting themselves off from other news they may need to know.

The best summary of the MSM mindset in question comes from (Raleigh-Durham) News & Observer book reviewer J. Peder Zane:

The rise of the Internet and cable television provide them with easy access to information. In theory, this democratization of news is a boon. In fact, it has led to a closing of the American mind as readers build psychic dikes and dams around themselves, limiting the flow of information that reaches them.

I tend to agree with what Zane is saying about Americans being too insular for their own good, but as for this trend being the fault of the “democratization of news”? Hogwash. Absolute hogwash.

I didn’t realize how silly this MSM argument is until I purchased an unfamiliar newspaper to find out which military bases face closure or realignment. Did I read the Dallas newspaper from cover to cover? No. The last time I did that was Sept. 12, 2001 and the following few days. I read two stories on base closings, which unfortunately were limited to Texas, a religion piece on The Force that was kinda cool, and coverage of the first execution in New England in almost half a century.

So the Internet, blogs and Fox have led to a “closing of the American mind”? Zane and others like him have just discovered what newspaper readers have been doing for 250 years.

Like fingerprints and snowflakes, no two newspaper readers are alike in their tastes. Allow me to share a little bit about my newspaper reading habits:

Things I love to read in the paper:

Things I’d rather eat scorpions than read in the paper:

Does this ignorance of the outside world hurt us? Yes. I mean, there are college-educated people I love dearly who I am positive cannot locate Iraq on a map, tell me who Britain’s PM is, or explain the Minuteman Project. Canada’s government is teetering on collapse because of the Adscam scandal, but aside from visitors to Captain’s Quarters, who would know?

But it is silly to blame ignorance of current events on having too many information sources. By this logic, libraries actually stifle knowledge because people have too many books to read.

For those of you who long ago dumped your MSM subscription but have digital cable, when was the last time you watched 200 channels in one sitting? If there was a plan that let you pick what channels you watched and pay for only those, you’d take it, right? Of course you would.

Hence the Internet and the blogosphere. There are people who don’t give a rip about media bias and Memogate, but you don’t see me whining about it. Then again, I have a cadre of daily visitors here who take the subject matter very seriously. There are people who know who testified in Day 57 of the Michael Jackson trial, but don’t know jack about the U.N. Oil for Food scandal.

I mean heck, newspapers themselves ask on-line subscribers what kind of news alerts they want. So on top of a silly argument to begin with, many newspapers are indirectly contributing to the very problem they are decrying.

Picking and choosing your news has been standard practice since newspaper readers in 1770 Boston flipped past the Massacre to read the salacious details of Mr. E—– C——– of Cambridge wearing a foppish hat to church.

Factual errors, ethics scandals and liberal bias aside, newspapers are losing readers because they are losing their relevancy. Dressing up an age-old habit in new technology and calling it “the problem” will not help the MSM.