Ethics

Are Newspapers Going Away?

By Ed Brayton

My friend Lauri Lebo interviewed me the other day for an article she's writing about the demise of newspapers. After that interview I came across this NY Times op-ed, which is a few weeks old but still very prescient. The authors start by reciting Jefferson's famous statement:

"THE basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right," Thomas Jefferson wrote in January 1787. "And were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter."

Today, we are dangerously close to having a government without newspapers. American newspapers shoulder the burden of considerable indebtedness with little cash on hand, as their profit margins have diminished or disappeared. Readers turn increasingly to the Internet for information -- even though the Internet has the potential to be, in the words of the chief executive of Google, Eric Schmidt, "a cesspool" of false information. If Jefferson was right that a well-informed citizenry is the foundation of our democracy, then newspapers must be saved.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on March 17, 2009 (boomark / email).