Stephan Salisbury of The Philadelphia Inquirer asks, a propos of newspapers: “What happens to a community when community no longer matters and when information is simply an opportunity for niche marketing and branding in virtual space? Who covers the mayor? City council? Executive agencies? Courts? It is this unraveling of our civic fabric that is the most grievous result of the decline of our newspapers. And it is the ordinary people struggling in the city who have lost the most, knowing less and less about where they are – even as the amount of information bombarding them grows daily at an astounding rate.” (The Observer. © Tim Adams/Guardian News & Media Ltd. Edited)
We now have on-line web pages we are comfortable with and tend to skim them for top news stories, but often without context or background. Society is atomised. Epicurus would have supported the idea of the newspaper, even if its sole job was holding those who govern us to account. Thomas Jefferson is quoted as saying: “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter.”
Britain is still better off for newspapers than America, although mostly right- wing views prevail, except in The Guardian. In the US nearly all the papers are owned by very rich people/ corporations, including the Washington Post. The New York Ti mes is leaking cash, apparently, like all the rest, and is now the last remaining standard bearer of Press balance. For how long? We really do need someone who will hunt down corruption and incompetence and expose them, but who will now pay for it?
I think online news can be good, if it is quality coverage that is in-depth and informative. Replacing paper tabloids with online ones will not solve anything.
Newspapers will always have a special place in my mind: I find publications like the Telegraph, the Guardian, as well as magazines such as the Spectator, New Statesman, the Economist, National Review and Time are a far better source of information than TV news or anything else. Many people skim them but I try to read as much of them as I can. Though in the modern world, I must admit than I am the exception rather than the norm, especially amongst people my age.