報紙有甚麼用？

Dear leechard,

I am very delighted to see your article named as 報紙有甚麼用？.
You have reminded readers a point about newspaper that most of us
have never noticed. It is a material for education

To me, it is really important concept. Many newspaper operators
in Hong kong have rarely taken this factor into account in
producing their newspapers.

Their only target is to get a high profit from the sales of newspaper
and the revenue from advertising. So much of the 'nasty'materials,
like obscence , violence , are included in these newspaper with a
larger amount of content of newspaper while the main knowledge
that citizens should know, for example, the geography of other
countries, your idea, are either expelled from the newsapper or
being published in a small, unnoticeable area in newsapaper.

This is very different from the practice done by the main media
operator in developed countires, which focuses more on the
citizen's knowledge and less in the nasty materials, like obscence.

I think the difference in content of newspaper is the difference
between high quality newspaper and poor quality newspaper.

If a society has more high quality newsapper , or even media,
surely this society must be knowledge-oriented. The mental health
of citizens there would increase at a faster rate, as you have
mentioned in
「民族致富」，致甚麼富？(問到底 No.6872 2007 1207 Friday)
(第二方面是增加精神方面的財富。這是「人」之所以為「人」的重要條件。)
The stable equilibrium between resource, intellengence, knowledge
and human would be set up in this society. This equilibrium is a
fundamental ground for the success society,which you have pointed
in (民族致富，可有程式？(問到底 No.6864 2007 1129 Thursday) )
(民族致富的程式，共有四個主要方面：「知」、「資」、「智」、「人」。
這四者之間組成的關係，就是人類生存的基本關係。欠缺了任何一方，生存就成
為問題。這生存關係健康完美，民族就富得起來。) This is in line
with the idea of great philsophers, both overseas and in china,
who had done a lot to publish a good newsapper to educate human,
In hong kong, the older days ming pao and tai kong pao is a good
example.

To me, this elaboration on the newspaper uses is a very important
concept that human should know in facing the challenges in 21st
century.

It is my sincere hope that you would consider including this
piece of elaboration, together with 民族致富的程式, in your new book,
so that human can get deeper understanding about the world.

With love,
william


李察回應：

十分謝謝你的熱忱。

但有一個小小的地方請留意，李察的意思並不是說：

報紙有「education」的用處。
李察只想提出一點： 報紙也可以是一種知識的探索工具。

從前很多人都強調報章的「教育」作用。但是，這是跟「探索」
不同的。一個教育者，通常都是飽學之士，擁有大量知識，
可無限量供應。

但「探索」卻是另外的一種功能。

其實，整個文化，都是在不斷摸索自己的路。我們應該有
這一份自覺。報章的作用，只是其一。


李察謹上