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.

Bird Cage

If the rags sheets go what will people that have birds use to line their bird cages?

It wasn't killed...

It committed suicide, the print media that is. I am one of those ink-stained sorts that grew up learning to read partly on the local daily newspaper, in my case the Chicago Tribune and the old Chicago Daily News. I love newspapers, and good news magazines, too. But their outlook has grown so blatantly biased, so insultingly condescending, that we couldn't take it anymore. After the old line MSM crawled in bed with the Obama campaign, we cancelled our subscription to the Trib, of over 30 year duration.

I would gladly buy any newspaper that actually delivers news, via solid, unbiased fact-based reporting - the way journalists used to do it, old-school style. The trouble is, no one is doing that anymore, not that I can see.

We are in the midst of a revolution in news delivery, one whose outcome we cannot foresee. Newspapers as we know them are dying and will expire unless Obama throws them a lifeline. But they will, I hope, be reborn in some new and perhaps better fashion.

Until then, there's the internet and the local library and bookstore.

Haven't watched network (ABC,CBS,NBC) news in at least fifteen years, for the same reasons above. FNC is closer to me politically, but they aren't the same as the old network broadcatsers used to be, before they became "activists."

Death of Newspapers Could Kill Communities

Print media is dying.

Network news viewership is declining.

Liberal talk radio is practically non-existent.

Books written by Conservatives are busting the Best Seller Lists while the Liberal authors have to pimp their crap all over the Television. Still no takers.

Now the irony:

The red-necks, Southern hicks, and right-wing extremists are glued to the Talk-radio, read the books written by the likes of Hannity / Coulter / Levin,...

While, the College educated liberal Elites are sipping their lattes at a local Starbucks, doing What?

Go figure!

Ditto, ditto, ditto.......

1. Contrast coverage of Cindy McCain with Michelle Obama.

2. Contrast coverage of Sarah Palin with joe Biden.

3. Contrast coverage of "tea parties" with gay activism.

4. Look what was done to Hillary Clinton.

It's been a while since I studied the Constitution but I seem to recall that aside from the sheer commercial enterprise, and the joy of a front row seat to history the press has an institutional responsibility to try in good faith to report what is going on to those of us with more mundane jobs. So that's an ETHICAL problem for you guys.

For a long time I thought it was just a noxious mix of first time urban ethnic college grads kissing up to Ivy league types who were guilty about the social and financial advantage they'd inherited. They wanted to be friends with the cool kids so they threw my kids under the bus.

Now I'm convinced it's not even a good faith conversation. Good riddance.

The sooner the newspaper old media dies the better

The sooner newspapers die the better. They have abandoned the public trust, and lost their connection with both objective reporting, and the communities they once served.

Connection of the community- certainly not in newspapers

The author felt newspapers keep communities together. How about the Tea Parties of last month, communities congealing together for an open discourse. Not one newspaper which I checked even disscussed them or those who tried to report either watched from a rooftop with earplugs or fabricated the whole situation. The sooner newspapers are dead, the sooner true discourse between neighbors and communities will exist.

Sadly, I suspect this was to be a serious article.

I'd like to think this was satire, yet I suspect you were serious. You write of the members of the 4th estate who have abandoned their post as the keeper of public trust for one of favor of the left. As much as they may wish, America is still far right of center. Hot button items for the press core are - in the quiet of the night - not those of the citizens of our nation.

Their very public support of the left, especially through the Bush years and during this past election have simply encouraged citizens to seek their news elswhere. While the press pooh-poohs blogs, news wires, alternative video channels, solid reporting - like the papers used to do - is being done. They are simply being out hussled. Papers are of decreasing value and their revenues simply show people voting with their feet and wallets. Why on earth is this a surprise to anyone?