The Steipler once sent a shaliach to Rav Moshe Feinstein regarding an important issue which the Steipler wanted Rav Moshe to become involved in. The shaliach discussed the issue with R' Moshe and told him all the details. When he was finished, he pulled out a Hamodia newspaper, explaining that this newspaper happens to have an article about the inyan. Rav Moshe declined to take the newspaper, saying that he had already heard the details so there is no need for him to see the article. The shaliach persisted, explaining that it was possible that he missed one or two important details.
Rav Moshe responded, "I have not held a newspaper in my hands for seventy years. As soon as I read a newspaper, I will no longer be qualified to pasken because my mind will not be one hundred percent Da'as Torah."
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Rav Moshe Tendler: My shver was uniquely sensitive to society. Despite what they write in all the books about him, my shver never failed to read the Yiddish newspaper – either the Tog in the early years or the Morgn-Zhurnal later on – cover-to-cover every single day. People publish that he would walk down the street and avert his eyes when he passed by newspaper stands. There are a thousand talmidim of his who will testify, “I bought the paper and handed it to him in the lunchroom in the yeshivah,” but it does not make a difference for some people – they do not want to hear that. Even when he was not well and the doctor insisted that he must lie down to sleep for an hour, he would go home, put on a bathrobe, and smuggle a newspaper into the bedroom so that his wife would not see it. He sat there reading the whole time, rather than sleeping. I used to ask him, “Why do you read this chazeray (junk)?” He would respond to me, “Dos iz mayn vinde” – this is my window [to the world]. He understood society and his piskei Halachah show that. He used to say, “People think that because I’m aware of society, I became a meikel (lenient decisor). What do they want me to do – paskn incorrectly? I’m not a meikel – I pasken the way it has to be. The Halachah takes into account societal factors.” This willingness to be exposed to society made his teshuvos more meaningful and more acceptable.
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Some Gedolim read newspapers. Others didn't. Who was right? Both groups of course b/c both were לשם שמים...
