The Boldest Business

I'm alarmed and saddened by the ongoing disaster in the newspaper industry.

Yesterday was a sort of Black Monday here in Raleigh, another long list of very good reporters and editors got their pink slips at The News & Observer. In the last few weeks, one major American paper has died and another has cut back to a very trimmed-down online existence. Newspapers' very continuation is threatened.

I'm frightened by the thought of an America without serious daily news reporting. Imagine what some of our sneakier administrations would have gotten away with if no one were looking. Blogging, as we now know it, is not enough. Blogging is rarely more than comments on recycled news. And the advertising on blogs will not support the kind of news gathering operation that is adequate to covering what's going on. Who knows when that revenue rise, if ever? Our country can't go a minute without reporters.

Reporting is the bold business of poking into places that often tell you to stay out. We need that as much as we need police and firemen and a whole lot of other basic services.

I'm hoping someone will come up with a bold solution fast to SAVE THE NEWSPAPERS.






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