The Newspaper Obituary
Nightly Business Report
Thursday, October 4, 2007
SUSIE GHARIB: Tonight's commentator says don't stop the presses. Here's Myron Kandel, president of the New Hampshire Initiative for Corporate Responsibility and Investor Protection.
MYRON KANDEL, PRES., NEW HAMPSHIRE INITIATIVE FOR CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY: Newspapers have hit a rough patch, what with revenues down, readership declining, staffs being cut and owners looking to sell out. That's not good for those who depend on local, regional and national papers for news, opinion, education, even ads. The Internet is picking up much of the slack, but the web is still not an adequate substitute for dyed-in-the-wool newspaper readers.
But there's another danger that's been largely overlooked. It's the threat those cutbacks are posing to the in-depth investigatory journalism, particularly on business subjects, that newspapers have produced in the past. That kind of reporting has uncovered public and private scandals and called attention to serious problems affecting health, education and the environment. Following the money has been an effective way of shining the spotlight on corruption and abuses of power.
Doing that requires substantial resources of time, money and manpower. In the past, many papers have been willing to undertake lengthy investigations, even while knowing that some of them will not hit pay dirt. But in the present bottom-line-oriented state of the newspaper business, that kind of commitment is decreasing. Television, magazines and even the web are doing some very good work, but newspapers are still the backbone of investigatory journalism. And, in turn, those kinds of stories produce loyal readers. We will all be the losers if newspaper owners diminish that tradition. I'm Myron Kandel.