As I write this column, there are enough unread copies of The Washington Post on my living room floor that, with a few gallons of Elmer’s glue, I could build a full-scale papier-mâché replica of South Campus Dining Hall. The pile of newspapers has achieved near-landmark status, and our resulting emotional attachments have made it completely impossible to discard. Therefore, it remains next to the front door, a monument to our complete lack of culture, a constant reminder of our parents’ wasted money and most importantly, a massive embarrassment whenever a neighbor happens to stop by. Or — knock on wood — the landlord. We clean the house pretty well otherwise, but I imagine it’s pretty hard to overlook a Nantucket-sized island of newspapers.

One of the rare mornings on which I happened to wake up early enough to read the Post before class, I took the opportunity to chastise one of my roommates. As he walked into the room with a bowl of cereal, I poked my head smartly over the top of the opinion page and informed him of the terrible disservice he did himself by not reading the newspaper every morning.

“Look at this,” I said, waving my hand over the pile, “don’t you see how sad this is?” He went on eating his cereal and told me, matter-of-factly, “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to read a newspaper when I’ve got the Internet sitting two feet from my bed.” Thoroughly depressed, I shut up and went back to reading.

The age of reading the morning paper at the breakfast table is most likely coming to an end. By the time we graduate, most of us will have spent four years checking the news on our computers before class in the morning, and it’s perfectly reasonable to assume we’ll continue doing so before work once we hit the real world. We’ll check out the few stories we have time to read and get the gist of other current events by scanning the headlines before heading out to the office.

Fortunately, though, the newspaper’s still got quite a bit of life left in it. Throughout the day we’ll ride the subway, sit on our lunch breaks and ride the subway again. What better way to use all this time than by reading a copy of The (Baltimore) Sun or The New York Times? There isn’t one, if you ask me, and it’s exactly this kind of leisurely reading we now have the opportunity to do.

As reported in Friday’s Diamondback, the university is trying out a program that makes available to students free copies of USA Today, The New York Times and The (Baltimore) Sun at various locations around the campus. The trial ends March 18, but if enough students read the free papers, the university will establish it on a permanent basis. Needless to say, it’s in all of our best interests to make sure this happens.

Don’t get me wrong — The Diamondback is a wonderful paper, and it’s amazing compared to other student papers around the country, but the average reader will burn through it in 10 or 15 minutes. For students with tightly packed schedules this is fine, but for those of us with giant swaths of time between classes, we need a little bit more. A copy of The Times or The Sun will easily fill this time and more, and we might even be inclined to finish reading after we’ve gotten home because it’s just so exceptionally interesting.

So do yourself and everyone else a favor and take advantage of this program. Do it to get used to reading a newspaper on a daily basis. Do it because you want the opinion of somebody who actually knows what they’re talking about, rather than mine. Do it because you’re tired of a crossword puzzle that uses the same five clues every single day.

Above all, do it so that there’ll still be newspapers when Diamondback employees who have spent four years informing and entertaining you go out looking for jobs.

Dave Anderson is a senior English major. He can be reached at dja215@gmail.com.