A Plan to Save Our Free Press (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

The Washington Post ^ | April 3, 2009 | Benjamin L. Cardin

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The newspaper industry is turning upside down. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Rocky Mountain News, the Baltimore Examiner and the San Francisco Chronicle are among the papers that have ceased daily publication or announced in recent months that they may have to stop publishing. Not long ago, Tribune Co., owner of the Baltimore Sun, filed for bankruptcy.

None of this bodes well for our democracy. Our country depends on an open and free press to monitor what happens in our communities so that Americans can make sound judgments about their lives and leaders. Thomas Jefferson, a man who was frequently vilified by newspapers, summed it up best when he said: "If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn't hesitate to choose the latter."

Like Jefferson, I believe that a well-informed public is the core of our democracy. How can we forget the role newspapers played in uncovering the Watergate and Enron scandals or the AIG bonus debacle? News stories, reported by journalists, often bring to public attention decisions and actions that affect all of us. While the world has increasingly fast access to news, one fact remains unchanged: When it comes to original, in-depth reporting that records and exposes actions, issues and opportunities in our communities, nothing has replaced newspapers. Most, if not all, sources of journalistic information, from Google to broadcast news or punditry, gain their original material from the laborious and expensive work of experienced newspaper reporters diligently working their beats over the course of years. Not hours, years.

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism reports that a typical metropolitan paper runs 70 stories a day, counting the national, local and business sections. In contrast, a half-hour of television news includes only 10 to 12 stories.

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Clown senator from Maryland.

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ping

[SamKeck]

None of this bodes well for our democracy.

Neither did it bode well for our republic when the print media became a wholly owned propaganda agency of the DNC.

American print media is dying because it deserves to.

[BenLurkin]

NYT killed story to protect Obama

http://www.poligazette.com/2009/03/31/report-nyt-killed-story-to-protect-obama/

[nascarnation]

My fear is that the govt will bail them our and make the propaganda relationship official and permanent

[ConorMacNessa]

My uncle always used to refer to the Washington Post as the morning Pravda. He was right, of course.

[abb]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/02/AR2009040204045.html
Journalists Give The First Lady Full Marks at G-20

http://recoveringjournalist.typepad.com/recovering_journalist/
Editors as Curators: What’s Taking So Long?

http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com/
New Nonprofit Model Emerges

http://gannettblog.blogspot.com/
Fla., Va. press closings raise layoff tally to 134

[astyanax]

"Our country depends on an open and free press to monitor what happens..."
Open and free.
I think information should be "open and free."
What does that have to do with newspapers?

[fortunate sun]

What free press? The New York TASS is going through cash like sh*t through a goose. TaTa Pinchy!

[abb]

http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/news/cityregion/11106051-41/story.csp
Journalist offers blunt assessment of industry

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=103372
TVB: Uptick In Online Ads, 26% Rise Expected For ‘09

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman2/publish/Hereandthere/Banned_in_Boston_The_fight_over_Leno.asp
Banned in Boston: The fight over Leno

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ajrvybBMwF2U
Hearst Seeks 20% Annual Cost Reductions at Newspapers

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

The only free press is the alternative, conservative media. The mainstream media, including the Wash Post, are useless tools of the marxist establishment.

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http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/
OPEN REBELLION: NBC’s Boston Affiliate (And Jay’s Hometown Station) Rejects Leno At 10 PM; Network Declares War

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123872376782485335.html
Hearst Makes Headway on Cost-Cutting at Chronicle

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cotown-cable3-2009apr03,0,2006382.story
Internet’s role in cable TV debated

[tentmaker]

The death of the highly biased main stream press is the ONLY HOPE for our liberty and freedom.

[DannyTN]

"a wholly owned propaganda agency of the DNC"

Don't they share ownership with some middle easteners.

[central_va]

Good Lord, these dang newspapers won’t die already! They keep springing up like a zombie in a cheap Hollyweird chiller movie.

[MinuteGal]

The now dead-in-the-waters-of-Lake-Michigan-fish-wrap, the Chicago Sun-Times, ran an editorial some years ago that it had decided to publish henceforth as a "liberal newspaper".

Talk about all-time bad decisions.

The City of Big Shoulders shrugged.

The Sun-Times will soon be gone in the Windy.

And frankly, my dear, who gives a damn?

Leni

[Tribune7]

None of this bodes well for our democracy coastal liberal establishment.

[Brett66]

How can we forget the role newspapers played in uncovering the Watergate and Enron scandals or the AIG bonus debacle? covering for Obama?

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Our country depends on an open and free press

. . . and the Democratic Party depends on aligning itself with the natural propaganda wind which occurs when the "open and free press" is actually an oligopoly of the newswires.

[Oldpuppymax]

Isn’t this absolutely astounding! The serially biased MSM cheerleads for an ignorant, incompetent, thoroughly unqualified empty suit, covers up for his every crime and ignoble act and then whines that the freedom of the press—the very survival of democracy— is at stake because people will no longer pay for their distortions, lies and fabrications. Only the left has such an utter lack of shame.