The doom-and-gloom stories about newspapers just keep coming. Soon major US cities such as San Fransisco might be without a daily paper. This concerns me for a number of reasons. First, because newspapers traditionally have more in depth coverage than television "news," which is usually a bunch of cliches laid end-to-end. (with some exceptions of course, but CNN, I'm looking at you).
Secondly, newspapers are one of the last local forms of media we have. Where else are you going to fund out about a variety of things - classified ads, concerts, public notices and tenders - all in once place? The internet is great if you know where to go looking, but not everyone does.
Which brings me to the third issue, access. Poor people often don't have computers or their internet access is so slow as to make it practically useless. A newspaper is much more available, and even an illiterate person can look at the pictures and make some sense out of what is happening.
It makes me sick to see all these greedy bankers getting bailed out when newspapers employ a lot of people and are far more vital than hedge funds, investment banks and 'derivatives.'
Newspapers are experiencing what record companies went through when downloading made buying cd's unnecessary. The newspapermen have yet to unleash any creative responses to the challenge posed by online journalism - it's hard to compete with the internet, which can publish in real time.
I think this is a reflection of how fragmented we have become - a city no longer has a voice in its newspaper, which is supposed to be a collection of facts, stories and debates about the future of that place.
Carleton County seems to be behind the times in that respect. Not enough people here live online so a newspaper is still an important source of information, and a viable business. If we could create one that is entirely local, we'd be ahead of the curve.
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