The Death of Newspapers

"A GOOD newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself." --Arthur Miller, 1961

Chicago used to be a great newspaper city, most major metropolitan were. And then he Rupert Murdochs of the world got into business, not to report the news, but to make money. The once proud Chicago Sun-Times was gutted when Hollinger International took over and siphoned off more than $400 million right into Conrad Black's bottomless pockets. The cuts that have decimated the small community papers owned by the Chicago Sun-Times, are now at the paper's door. Fewer reporters are expected to get the news, and those fewer reporters are usually less experienced recent journalism school grads who work for less. Where two reporters worked on a story, one reporter works and he loser is the public.

Now, we can say that newspapers have been done in my the Internet, but we know that's not true. Newspapers have been done in by the greed of corporations who buy companies for the profits they generate, not the reporting they provide. Advertising dollars are what keeps newspapers alive, and those dollars have, in the past 10 years, been moving to the Internet. According to a 2006 article in The Economist: "In Switzerland and the Netherlands newspapers have lost half their classified advertising to the internet." That same year, the venerable New York Times came under fire not because of its reporting, but because its share prices fell. And the first place so-called modern newspaper barons look for cuts is in the newsroom. What we have today is more media and less news.

So what does this mean? Well, when politicians burgle their opponents' offices who will tell the story? If, as Benjamin Franklin said, "It is the fist responsibility of every citizen to question authority," who will publish these questions or the public response? A newspaper does more than investigating abuses or even spreading general news, it holds the governments to account. Bloggers do the same thing, but we do not do it with the same educated background, eye to detail, and mania for accuracy (well, some bloggers anyway), and we certainly don't do it objectively.

Giants die, and when they die they fall harder and leave a gapping wound for the rest of us to ponder. Newspapers are important on both the local and national level. The loss of talented people who are willing to report the news objectively but with intelligence leaves the rest of is poorer.