As a parent and a parent coach, I tend to view these stories through a filter: How do they affect children? I see the dismantling of print affecting children in a profound way. Perhaps one of the most powerful ways to teach kids is through the behavior we model. When Mom and/or Dad sit down with the paper, we model the joy of reading as well as the importance of staying up on current events.

We often have the newspaper sitting on the kitchen table in the morning, and my kids will take a look at it and ask questions. Not only do we model our behavior for our children with newspapers, but it is also an opportunity to open up discussions and communication with our children.

Surfing the web for news- it's a great opportunity, but just not the same when it comes to modeling and engaging our children. Our children are an important reason to keep the newspapers coming.

Coach Nancy

Parent Coach and Mother of Three

Blog- Diapers to Dating:    http://www.myparentingsource.com/community/blogs/nancyp/default.aspx  

www.myparentingsource.com                                                                                         

I totally agree with you that we DO need both mediums - absolutely we do.

I think, however, the tendency of bloggers to feel perhpas a little smug at the demise of some traditional media is a product of the disrespect with which traditional media has treated bloggers.

I'm a former print journalist myself and I have written about this many time (most recently last month after the UK Times lifted my blog content for one of their stories). I think perhaps newspapers might be a little more ahead of the curve if they had tried to stake a partnership with existing forces in the blogosphere earlier. Instead they just dismissed us and set their own reporters to blogging, thus doubling their reporters' workload and dividing writers into two camps - old and new media.

 I could go on and on about this - I was really hoping that perhaps BlogHer this year would have a forum about the tensions and evolving relationships between print publications and bloggers.

www.donmillsdiva.blogspot.com

I keep thinking - it's not as if bloggers can rescue newspapers, or at least I can't see how they could, but if newspapers continue going out of business, bloggers are going to have to take up some of the burden to learn to be better journalists and researchers. We might also start new models and businesses, maybe collectives, with the journalists who are now out of work. 

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Liz Henry
lizzard@bookmaniac.net

Liz has it right on. Journalists go to school to be journalists. Bloggers don't go to school to be bloggers. If bloggers are going to be taking the responsibilty of putting ideas and opinions into people's thought process, they need to take it seriously. 

But just as everything evolves, so does research and media. How do journalists do their research? Not at the library like days of old, they do it on the internet. I can only assume they are now writing on the internet as well.

www.rookie-cookie.com

Whitney Ingram

As the daughter of a professional journalist who became a freelance news and magazine writer/editor myself after getting a political science degree, I am sad to watch the decay of the print newspapers which have been such a part of my life. I am sad for my friends in the newsroom and the freelancer circuit who, like myself, haven't yet figured out exactly how our skills fit into the new online world. But, as a poli sci grad, I am most concerned about what happens to the critical role big newsrooms play in keeping the voting public informed and holding elected officials accountable. Bloggers are certainly able to do the same but I worry the ethical standards, fact checks and localized coverage don't seem to be quickly emerging. 

Even the seasoned journalists I know who have moved online alone seem a bit lost as to how to translate skills from one broad medium to another that is so much more niche focused - without specific newspaper type sites to work under (which did double our workloads as stated by Don Mills Diva). I am hopeful that a solution will come - sooner than later.  And, I am hopeful the blogosphere is ready for the influx of unemployed, highly skilled journalists who, if welcomed, can indeed help with the transformation of the fourth branch to the web from the printed word.  

If you haven't already - check out www.newspaperproject.org 

gschaefer

See my blogs at http://Bodhisattvasinthestreet.blogspot.com and http://thriftdecorator.blogspot.com

I went to journalism school when the outlook for print publications was bleak--now it's sad to see how quickly it has become downright dismal. I'm intrigued by the discussions that are popping up about what a Chronicle-free San Francisco would be like (including this wiki about what well-designed undertakings might come up in its place: http://postchronicle.wetpaint.com/?t=anon).

Kathi

In addition to the excellent points made above, there is an over-arching point we need to face.  The Web had always touted itself as a place for freedom as well as free access.  But just as the whole Napster affair reminded us that we have no right to expect musicians to give their work away for free, we also need to face the same fact about journalism and the media.  We've come to a time when we need to realize that even if print media switches to a completely online format, they still need money to stay in business and are not in a position, especially in this economy, to rely completely on advertising revenue in order to pay their journalists for what they do.   Journalists also have to travel to the stories in order to get them, and that costs money, too.

I, for one, expect to be required to support public radio financially, for instance, even as I access it mostly online when I am at home.   I would be willing to pay for online subscriptions, but because the print and TV media have thus far been supplying free online content, changing this will be difficult.  Somehow the media as an industry needs to figure out how to get its market to support it anew, as it moves to more online content, or pretty soon there isn't going to be any content worth reading or viewing.