I was watching Morning Joe this morning, and they do this recap of the day’s “papers”. Actually hold up newspapers to show stories on the front page. On the Washington Post today there is a story about the sprawling, mostly secret anti-terrorism operations in the US, so big and diverse it answers to no one, nobody knows who’s running what, how many people are employed, how much is being spent, etc. The number of people with top secret clearance alone is 850,000.
One of the commentators, Mike Barnacle, pointed out that this is why we need newspapers (or, I would add, the online version of them). SOMEBODY funded a two-year investigation, and that somebody was a newspaper. We Americans needed to know about this. Congress and the Prez, also. If not for the WashPo, who would have told us about this? Bloggers?
So here is my point: this exemplifies WHY we need the fourth estate, and I would be willing to pay a subscription to fund a journalistic enterprise. Maybe, hopefully, this is where the future of journalism lies. And now I’ll step off my soapbox.
Lynne: I sooo agree with you on this one! As a former newspaper writer & editor, it crushes me to see the demise of so many former bastions of the free press. Not to mention what it does to the job market — all those bright-eyed, talented kids who thought they’d change the world are now sitting around wondering if they’ll have to get jobs where their biggest question is, “Would you like fries with that?” Such a crying shame!
Exactly! Newspapers are critical for democracy to thrive. Without those hungry, eager reporters, politicians can get away with anything, and so can polluters, evil CEOs, etc. We need the reporters! And they can’t work for free.