Death of Newspapers Could Kill Communities, Civic Values Too

Legitimate news is out there

It frightens me to see so many negative comments about newspapers! I realize most of the negativity is directed toward large dailies, but we must not forget there are small, community, weekly newspapers in small counties and towns with one traffic light that do actually report the news. We can't just lump ALL newspapers into one category and say good riddance. Your local newspaper has an office where you can see the people who are putting out your news. Local newspaper reporters go to meetings and report to you where your tax dollars are going. If you look inside a newspaper, you can find out who is giving you your news. The same cannot necessarily be said for online news sources. Anyone can whip out a website and call it news and do or say what they want, but who is accountable? Let us not forget that there is more to the world of newspapers than huge corporations trying to make money.

Wrong focus people

The big dailies seem to be the topic of your venomous "down with the press: here, but I don't think that is where the essayist is focused. Let's pull this back down to a LOCAL level and talk about the small dailies, the weekly, the community journals and newsletters that reflect where people REALLY live.

Where else but a local newspaper will tell you what your town council or selectmen are doing? How about the local planning board? The school committee? Who writes about local sports: Little League, soccer leagues, youth hockey, the men's slow pitch softball, bocci leagues, horseshoes? Who talks about the pool tournament down at the local pub? Takes pictures of the Girl Scouts cleaning on Earth Day?

That is true civics folks, and those small newspapers are the ones most threatened by the Internet and the lack of local advertising to stay afloat.

When we call on the local car dealership, asking that they take out ad space, we're not hammering on them for their money...we are trying to pay our bills. And it isn't often that GM itself is going to take out an ad in our publication, we rely on that local dealership.

So, the letters to the editor section was two pages this week, we had two local columnists, photos of the Little League games, local high school sports, stories on an upcoming town meeting, the board of selectmen and local people being honored for volunteer work.

That is the kind of journalism in danger of being lost. We don't even read the big dailies here, we're too busy "doing" the local news...the important stuff...

Death of Newspapers

Our schools don't teach civics anymore, what makes this editorial writer think the Newspapers do?

The newspapers know little about real community pulse, just like government they became out of touch years ago.

Editorilizing won't turn advertisers on, because people won't advertise in editorial sheets.

Like S. Alton from NC, I hope to live long enough to see the NYT bite the big one.

Let's just hope Obama doesn't do a bailout for them also.