NEWSPAPERS: It’s National Newspaper Week.

This year marks the 84th celebration. Since 1940, Newspaper Association Managers has sponsored and supported the week-long promotion of the newspaper industry in the United States and Canada.

Here’s some quotes from folks talking about our favorite medium.

“People don’t actually read newspapers. They step into them every (day) like a hot bath,” said Marshall McLuhan, Canadian philosopher.

This from American author Richard Kluger: “Every time a newspaper dies, even a bad one, the country moves a little closer to authoritarianism…”

American historian Henry Steele Commager explained this of the content in newspapers: “This is what really happened, reported by a free press to a free people. It is the raw material of history; it is the story of our own times.”

Arthur Miller, American essayist and playwright, said, “A good newspaper is a nation talking to itself.”

Back to the birth of America, one of the nation’s Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, spoke of his affinity for newspapers.

“Were it left to me to decide if we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

Henry Ward Beecher, American Congregationalist, clergyman, social reformer and speaker, spoke of the importance of newspapers.

“The newspaper is a greater treasure to the people than uncounted millions of gold.”

In modern times, journalist Arthur Sulzberger Jr., former publisher of The New York Times, explained newspapers are every bit as important now as they have ever been.

“Newspapers cannot be defined by the second word — paper. They’ve got to be defined by the first word — news.”

And this quote from Mark Twain: “A newspaper is not just for reporting the news as it is, but to make people mad enough to do something about it.”