The other day I was sitting in my office, doing what I normally do during the time I'm supposed to be writing, which is browsing the Internet.

While I was trolling around a few news sites, I read that one of the most respected and long-standing newspapers in America, The Rocky Mountain News, would be joining the ranks of several other daily newspapers which have recently folded up shop and gone out of business.

I don't know if most people have a sincere appreciation of what happens when a newspaper goes out of business, but they should.

You see, getting your news (or doing any number of things) online is getting more and more difficult, in case you hadn't noticed. While I was reading the story on The Rocky Mountain News, for instance, about halfway through my reading, I was assaulted by an active, wiggly advertisement on the right-hand fifth of the page (in this case featuring a blond woman doing a kind of herky-jerky dance) telling me that if I clicked the ad I could learn all the magical secrets of their new and incredibly low mortgage rates.

At this point my computer froze up, and I spent the next five minutes doing the whole "ctrl-alt-del" thing in an effort to snap it out of the spell Mortgage Blondie had apparently put it under. And as I was waiting for my computer to boot back up, it occurred to me that I've never had to ctrl-alt-del or re-boot the newspaper, which carries the same stories and arrives on my doorstep daily.

That's because newspapers are more dignified than that. They sit patiently in your driveway each day, in their box at the newsstand, or even on your kitchen table, until you are ready to take them out, sit down, and read them.

During the time you are reading the newspaper, it will not make a sound. It does not require a high-speed connection or media card to function. It will not set off technicolor light shows on the edge of the page you're reading in order to distract you from the story, block your view with a car that skids to the center of the page and stays there, or place a pulsating pop-up box into your field of vision which says you've won a trip to Tahiti or asks if you have time to take a quick survey.

The reason is simple. Your newspaper has too much respect for your intelligence to do this. Which is a good thing in serious times like these.

There is no other form of media so simple, yet so complete. Yes, computers are nice for breaking news stories, but even then it's often hard to get information you need without at least half the page flashing, blinking, and doing everything possible to distract you towards the trivial. Or just give you a headache.

Television is not much better; in fact, I've noticed advertisements there have become increasingly invasive just as they have on the Internet. The lower right and left-hand corners of the TV screen are no longer considered part of whatever program that's going on. Indeed, they have now become popular places to put small, moving ads (mostly for other shows). And the lower-screen scroll -- once used only for emergencies or closed captioning -- is now used to hawk any number of things, from local businesses to for-profit events.

And what of radio? Two words: Less and more. Less news, more opinion. Less content, more ads. Even pay-to-hear satellite radio now has certain stations which run regular, intrusive ads, something listeners probably thought the fee they were paying would (or should) eliminate.

And all these things make me wonder how, for so many years, the newspaper world managed to survive without the advertisers ever actually taking over and polluting it the way it's happened with television, radio and the Internet?

I appreciate my newspaper's quiet, thoughtful approach more than ever before, and it makes me want to tuck it under my arm and retreat somewhere quiet -- a comfy chair in the living room, or the chaise lounge in the back yard. And there, I will read the news -- yes, the news, presented at the top and center on each page. The advertising will be there, too of course, but fitted in down below, where you can read it at your leisure, once you're done with your news story.

No whooshing, no beeping and no pop-ups ... just a media outlet which still puts your need and right to know first and foremost, and informs without gimmickry. That's the beauty your fresh-off-the-presses local newspaper.

May it always be around.

Diane Sayre is a freelance writer living in Hanford. Her column appears weekly in the Sentinel. Readers can write to her at The Hanford Sentinel, P.O. Box 9, Hanford, CA 93232.

(June 1, 2009)