this lecture, I hope you may find your dissertation-writing smooth.

SECTION B CONVERSATION

M: Have you seen this story in The Herald? It says The Times is closing down in three months’

time.

W: Gary, that’s good news, that newspaper is terrible. I won’t miss it.

M: What do you mean? The Times is the best newspaper in the city. If that closes, we’ll only have

The Herald and that City Journal which is too awful for words.

W: This is a

newspaper which puts the horoscopes on the bottom of the front page. I think that tells you how

serious it is.

M: Come on. That’s hardly fair now, is it? Remember the campaign they did last year to save the

children’s hospital. You can’t tell me you didn’t think that was a worthwhile thing to do. you remember reading their article a couple of months before criticizing the local authorities

wasting money on out-of-date healthcare facilities, including the very same children’s hospital?

They have only ever written what they think will sell more newspapers.

M: Well, it obviously didn’t work if they’re closing, did it?

W: No, and thank heavens for that. The City Journal is a great paper and you don’t like it because it

doesn’t devote 5 pages every day to baseball stats.

M: This is a baseball city. We’ve got a great team. Why shouldn’t we read about it? Where are we

going to get the results now? The Journal puts all the results in one tiny box on the back page

and The HeraldThe Journal.

W: Err, maybe because it has authentic journalists working there, journalists who know something

about what is going on in the rest of the country and the rest of the world. I think a newspaper

needs to meet all the needs of its readers, not just those who like sports. The Journal did a great

piece on famine in Africa last week, did you read it?

M: No, I can’t say I did. I think they should leave that stuff for the national papers or for the TV

news. If I buy a local newspaper, I don’t want to read about the famine in Africa. Those articles

are only written by the ambitious journalists who are fishing for jobs in the national press.

W: Oh, you’re so cynical.

M: And another thing. What about the jobs section in The Times? That was one of the most useful The Herald has one

too... look, here on page 17... one page... and look, half of these jobs are on the other side of the

state. Every business, every store in this city knows, if they want to employ someone, get

someone to work for them, they have to place an ad in The Times. How are all these people

going to get work now? This will absolutely wreck the local economy.

W: You certainly know how to exaggerate, Gary. Destroy the local economy, will it? I admit the

jobs section was pretty good in The Times but one of the other two newspapers will just get the