My reflections on the future of newspaper writers blogging by the online publisher of The Spokesman-Review

Once again, Ken Sands hits on same journalistic problem that Anne Marie Lipinski said at the Ruhl Lecture - information wants to be economically free. Many editors said that it takes a lot of financial resources to get the reporter to the scene and provide the necessary needs of the reporter to execute his or her responsibility. Sands, like Lipinski, contends that he does not have any answers to resolving the dilemmas of declining circulation and advertising dollars facing many newspapers today or in the future. As a result, it is becoming much harder for print journalism to survive in a world of increased competition in what a commentator in a previous blog entry called the content business. However, the reader's perception of economically-free information is largely created by the newspaper industry when most of America's journalists and editors are obsessed with community or local news, especially in small towns like Eugene. One journalist wrote in an application that he would like to work for the community paper in the country. How difficult is it for a reporter to gather the necessary information to write an article about a local crime, the vote at city hall or the latest high school sporting event? Information, at this point to me, should be economically free, especially when most newspaper journalists are only covering local news.

Remember, unlike newspapers, the average news consumer does not "pay" for television news or news websites. When editors of many newspapers show their indifference to domestic, national or international stories by providing very skimpy coverage, the reader will perceive information as economically free, especially when the reader only needs to pop onto the Internet for the same information. Worse, those newspapers are heavily dependent on the Associated Press or Reuters for those stories. While I do not know what ordinary Americans expect of their newspapers, I do not read local newspapers in general because, in Eugene, newspapers seemingly believe that there is nothing more pressing than the local high school sporting event. Frankly I find troubling that local residents are so ill-informed about globally pressing issues like the Iranian nuclear crisis, the humanitarian crisis in Darfur or the immigration reforms on Capitol Hill. Right now, I do not know whether journalists in America today is just out of touch with its readers or editors cannot understand that proximity is irrelevant in an era of nuclear mass destruction.