Ethics & Religion
Column #2,093
September 23, 2021
Newspapers Are Vanishing
By Mike McManus
Thomas Jefferson said, "Our liberty depend on freedom of the press.
And that cannot be limited without being lost."
Since 2004 one fourth of America's newspapers have disappeared: - 2,100
newspapers! That includes 70 dailies and 2,000 weeklies. At the end of
2019 America had 6,700 newspapers, down from almost 9,000 in 2004.
Those that survive are often crippled. For example, this column was once
published by the biggest paper in Alabama, The Birmingham News. Sadly,
that paper now only appears three days a week.
For more than two centuries, newspaper editors and reporters were the
prime, if not the sole, source of credible and comprehensive
information. They set the agenda for debate of important public policy
issues, and as a result, influenced the course of history.
Newspapers also nurtured social cohesion and political participation by
putting into local context issues that may are national ones, such as
health care or gun control.
The number of newspapers peaked in the early 1900s when there were
24,000 weekly and daily publications. By 2004 the number fell to only
9,000 papers still publishing. Since then, the United States has lost
one-fourth - or 2,100 of its newspapers. In the country today there are
6,730 surviving papers, including 1,260 dailies and 5,470 weeklies.
Three-quarters of these papers have a circulation under 15,000. Sadly,
about 1,800 of the communities that have lost a paper since 2004 do not
have easy access to any local news sources.
An informed public, who used to read newspapers, are totally uninformed.
This has hit me personally. When I moved from metro Washington to a
small Virginia town 150 miles away 18 months ago, I was able to have The
Washington Post delivered to my house. Within two months, that ended but
I could still buy the paper in a local drug store. However, that
opportunity also ended weeks later. Now I can only read a local
newspaper on a daily basis.
The impact on me is far less important than the overall trend of closing
newspapers and shrinking coverage of matters important to readers such
as education, health, politics - and religion. Television has been a
powerful competitor for people's time.
There still are three national newspapers - The New York Times, Wall
Street Journal and USA Today. Their circulations are in the millions.
However, as hometown papers disappear - and the state and regional
papers lay off veteran journalists and pull back on coverage - the
health of the nation's economy and our political system is imperiled.
In July 2019, the family owners of The Vindicator in Youngstown, Ohio
announced they were shuttering the 150-year-old newspaper. Managing
Editor Mark Sweetwood told his staff, "We can't change the
circumstances, but we are going to walk out of here with our heads held
high."
At its demise, The Vindicator, which employed more than 30 journalists,
had a circulation of only 35,000, serving a metropolitan area of a half
million residednts, where a third are living in poverty.
Only four of the 70 dailies that have vanished had circulations above
100,000 when they closed and all were in two-newspaper cities - The
Rocky Mountain News in Denver, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, and the Tampa
Tribune. Today there are only a handful of metro areas - most notably
New York, Washington Chicago and Los Angeles - that still have two or
more daily newspapers.
In 2009 the Seattle Post-Intelligencer switched to a digital-only
publication. A spokesman for Morehead State University said a local
economic development official, observed, "I can't say to a prospect,
we've got everything you want in
a small town, except a newspaper...If you don't have a newspaper in your
community, how backward are you?"
In 2015, The Washington Post abruptly closed all 20 of its Maryland
weeklies in affluent Montgomery County when Jeff Bezos, who had
purchased the Post, failed to find a buyer.
That left only one paper, the 165-year-old Montgomery Sentinel, to cover
a county of more than 1 million residents. But in January 2020, it also
closed.
The Brookings Institution reported that in early April, 2020, half of
the 2,485 counties that reported COVID-19 cases, had no local newspaper
to cover the news.
Sadly what's emerging in hundreds of communities is a "news desert." All
residents in a community need access to critical information in order to
make wise decisions that will affect the quality of their lives.
Two-thirds of the nation's counties no longer have a daily newspaper.
This is tragic.
A free press is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution which states that
"Congress shall make no law...abridging freedom of speech or the press."
Freedom of the press plays a vital role in informing citizens about
public affairs, and overseeing the actions of government at all levels.
Sadly, that is shrinking.
_________________________
Copyright (c)2021 Michael J. McManus, a syndicated columnist and past president of Marriage Savers. To read past columns, go to
www.ethicsandreligion.com. Hit
Search for any topic.
|
|
Since 1981...
2000+ Columns |
|
CURRENT ARTICLE |
|
Febrary 9,
2022: Column 2113: My Farewell Column: Happy Valentine's Week |
|
Recent Columns |
|
Writing Columns About
Marriage |
|
Will Abortion Be Made Illegal? |
|
Restore Voting Rights to Ex-Felons |
|
Progress in Black-White Relations |
|
Marriage Is
Disappearing |
|
Catholic Priest Celibacy Should Be Optional |
|
Blacks Must Consider Marriage |
|
The Need to End Catholic Priest Celibacy |
|
More Lessons For Life |
|
Lessons For Life |
|
Rebuilding Marriage in America |
|
How To Reduce Drunk Driving Deaths |
|
The Value of Couples Praying Together |
|
A Case for Pro-Life
|
|
End
The Death Penalty? |
|
Christian Choices Matter |
|
The Biblical Sexual Standard |
|
The Addictive Nature of Pornography |
|
Protecting Girls from Suicide |
|
The Worst Valentine:
Cohabitation |
|
Pornography: A Public Health Hazard |
|
Sextortion Kills Teens |
|
Cohabitation: A Risky Business |
|
Recent Searches |
|
gun control,
euthanasia,
cohabitation,
sexting,
sextortion,
alcoholism,
prayer,
guns,
same sex marriage,
abortion,
depression,
islam,
divorce,
polygamy,
religious liberty,
health care,
pornography,
teen sex,
abortion and infanticide,
Roe+v+Wade,
supreme court,
marriage,
movies,
violence,
celibacy,
living+together,
cohabitation,
ethics+and+religion,
pornography,
adultery,
divorce,
saving+marriages |
|