By Dave Andrusko

In an information-saturated communications world, sometimes we place so much emphasis on what we can access electronically that we ignore how important a role books and newspapers still play. This came to mind for three reasons: (1) a very nice letter I received yesterday praising National Right to Life News; (2) a column by David Brooks; and (3) an expedition into back issues of NRL News from the 1970s.

The letter was so complimentary it almost made me blush. She liked the yin and the yang, so to speak of the latest issue. She was thrilled to read the winning pro-life essays from youngsters and a story about interns at NRLC on the one hand.

On the other hand she was encouraged by Karen Cross's story about the solid pro-life candidates that are running this fall and the in-depth explanation of the background of Dr. Donald Berwick, a fervent believer in rationing, who Obama had nominated to run the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (Subsequently, facing opposition, Obama used a recess appointment to prevent a Senate Finance Committee hearing.)

Brooks' op-ed in the New York Times, "The Medium Is the Medium," touted the improvement in the test scores of disadvantage students who were given books of their own to take home at the end of the school year. These kids, who had done this for three consecutive years, "had significantly higher reading score than other students."

This approach is not the be-all and end-all [nothing by itself is] for anyone, but many of the reasons Brooks cites as possible explanations why scores went up apply to anything that is not located in cyberspace--newspapers and magazines. [www.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/opinion/09brooks.html?_r=1&sq=davidbrookscolumn&st=cse&scp=2&pagewanted=print.]

Touting the virtues of NRL News is not to downgrade the great usefulness of the Internet. You are reading this post online, after all. It is to say that there are unique pluses for a publication such as NRL News that is kept around the house, that people return to repeatedly over the course of a month, and which has a "presence" that doesn't disappear with the click of a mouse.

By the way, I neglected to mention that the researchers gave the students books of their own choosing. By choosing NRL News you are selecting a communications vehicle that you want in your home which (we might infer from the study from researchers, led by Richard Allington of the University of Tennessee) increases the likelihood you and your family will benefit especially.

My expedition into copies of NRL News from the 1970s reminded me both how we prophesized the onslaught of the euthanasia ethos 37 years ago and how many great writers this newspaper has published. Nice to be in such elevated company.

Please do me a favor. Go to http://www.nrlc.org/news/NRLNames.html. There you can download a form that you can use to send a sample copy of the "pro-life newspaper of record" to family, friends, and colleagues. It's very inexpensive to and is an enormous help to us.

Take a moment, won't you? You'll be glad you did, I promise. After all an educated pro-lifer is the unborn child's best friend.

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