Today’s world is incessantly changing, always in flux. Technological advancements, scientific discoveries and rapid changes in our society have rendered previous assumptions obsolete. As college students preparing to enter into the career world, it is especially important for us to be aware of all the new developments in information. Experience and assigned readings and lectures are helpful, but we need to have something that will fill in the gaps. Something that will help us come into our selected career field more enlightened than if we depended on those two important factors alone. Shockingly, newspapers may offer that assist in our first steps onto the at times tenuous career playing field. As college students, we passively listen to lectures that augment our understanding of our particular majors. Like cable television’s talking heads, professors who rely on lectures don’t give you much of a chance to form your own opinions on controversial current topics. Yet, in class discussions, which are akin to newspapers (I’ll explain in a bit) professors give you an opportunity to not only add to your awareness but to also form your own opinions. We’re given the ability, as participants, to speak informed opinions. So too with many newspapers nowadays-writers’ bylines often include their e-mail addresses for readers to contact them. On television news, on the other hand, the anchors are distant and appear all-knowing. While this is changing to an extent, with the emergence of television news websites’ podcasts, newspapers continue to be a more democratic medium. Not only are their writers and letters to the editor pages accessible to readers’ opinions, newspapers also offer more real information in depth and cheaper. Sensationalist coverage dominates today’s TV news; while similar newspaper coverage does exist, newspapers continue to focus more on substantial topics. As college students readying ourselves for our careers, we must stay current with information and know more than thirty second television coverage provides. Stem cell research developments offering potential cures of life threatening diseases and the accompanying political and religious fury that has been forcing scientists to move their research overseas should provoke interest of all you pre-med, philosophy, and religion majors. A burgeoning birthrate of immigrants in this country has serious political, societal, and economic consequences, so political science, social work, and economics majors take note. These are but two of the many important ongoing issues currently being covered in more depth in newspapers that have the potential to shake up previous assumptions. If one just relies on television news and class readings alone, then the knowledge of these situations will be incomplete, if not inexistent. But newspapers are not perfect, as an upcoming panel discussion, hosted by the Division of Campus Residences, will discuss. USA Today, which sponsors the Collegiate Readership Program that provides free USA Today, New York Times and Newsday issues on campus, will be having a panel discussion ,moderated by WBAB’s Matt ‘the New Guy’ Dalton. Panelists Norm Prusslin, Stony Brook University’s director of the media minor and the media Living Learning Center, Dave Lieberman, senior media reporter for the USA Today Money section, Mira Lowe, Newsday editor, and Genetta Adams, Newsday assistant managing editor of features and entertainment, will discuss ‘what’s right and wrong with newspapers today.’ This USA Today panel discussion, which also is endorsed by the campus chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, occurs on October 3 at 6:30 PM in the Student Activities Center Auditorium. In full disclosure, I am president of the campus chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.