We'd Rave About Newspapers...
I can understand why newspapers are not viewed as trendy today. After all, they were really the iPods of 1690.
But humor me, and consider this alternate history: Imagine if Gutenberg
had invented a digital modem rather than a printing press, and that for
centuries all of our information had come to us online.
Further, imagine if we held a press conference announcing the invention of an intriguing new product called the “newspaper.”
That press conference might go something like this: We’re pleased to announce a new product that will revolutionize the way
you access information. It will save you time and money and keep you
better informed than ever before.
Just consider the hours you’ve spent on the Internet looking for
information of interest to you. We’ve hired specialists who live and
work in your hometown to cull information sources and provide a daily
report tailored to your community, your friends and your neighbors.
We also know that you sometimes wonder whether you can trust the
information you see online. We plan to introduce a painstaking new
process called “factchecking” in which we actually verify the
information before we pass it along to you.
In addition to saving time online, you’ll also save money. You won’t
need those expensive color ink cartridges or reams of paper because
information will be printed out for you in full color every day.
You’ll also save money on access charges and those unpleasant fights
over who gets time on the computer because this product will be
physically delivered to your home at the same time each day, for less
than what you would tip the guy from Pizza Hut.
You worry about your kids stumbling across porn on the Internet, but
this product is pre-screened and guaranteed suitable for the whole
family.
And in a security breakthrough, we guarantee newspapers to be absolutely virus-free, and promise the elimination of those annoying pop-up ads. It’s also the most portable product in the world, and doesn’t require
batteries or electricity. And when the flight attendant tells you to
turn off your electronic devices, you can actually turn this on,
opening page after page without worrying about interfering with the
plane’s radar.
To top it all off, you don’t need a long-term warranty or service
protection program. If you’re not happy with this product on any day,
we’ll redesign it and bring you a new one the next day.
I can see the headlines now: “Cutting-edge newspapers threaten Google’s survival.”
My point, of course, is that newspapers remain an extraordinary
information bargain, and we shouldn’t be selling them short or lose
sight of the qualities that make American journalism so critical to our
democracy.
When we do our jobs as journalists the right way, when we strive every
day to publish reports of integrity and balance, when we ask the tough
questions, when we fight to keep the public’s business public and when
we provide the kind of thorough and balanced reporting that is the lifeblood of a democracy, we fulfill our promise
to that first generation of Americans who believed that one of the best
ways to guarantee a democracy was a free and vigorous press.
There are people counting on us.
Ken Paulson is president of the Newseum and the
Freedom Forum in Washington,D.C., and the former
editor of USA Today.