"Watching the dismantling of print newspapers has been like passing an accident on the highway, something we slow down for ten seconds to take in before resuming our regular speed forward. After all, we're part of the *new* wave of *new* media. Get with it, print! But can we really move forward while newspapers falter? Are we ignoring our own fate if we don't stop to ponder print's future?
"Reader and reporter alike have arrived at point of reckoning for newspapers, a point we didn't anticipate actually would happen -- despite the shinking circulation rates. And at this point, where we still see the decline of print like we do an unfortunate victim that doesn't affect our everyday lives, Stella Haven's post is most relevant. You see, she's in the dust-up on the road, and she and her colleagues are clinging to survive, even heal and thrive. Reading the perspective of someone initimately involved in one of the Recession's most damaged industries we are reminded that we are all involved in this atrocity of a traffic accident. We all may lose.
"Haven, a reporter for the beleaguered San Francisco Chronicle and writer of Just a Girl in San Francisco, reminds us that her loss is our loss. In her piece, "Why Newspapers Matter, or, Where Do You Think the News on the Web Comes From?" she writes, "Exactly who do you think gathers that news, vets it and delivers it to you online? Without The Chronicle, there is no SF Gate, one of the top 10 most visited news sites in the country."
"The loss isn't just the media's, or avid online readers'. Haven opens her post with a story from the beginning of her career, when her news story of an insurance snafu allowed a family to take their terminally ill daughter out of the hospital to die at home, and she learns the power and importance of her profession.
" A college classmate of mine, Dino Ciliberti, said to me once that he chose to go into journalism to help people. At the time, I thought, "Then be a doctor." But I would go on to learn that he was right: newspapers (in my case The San Francisco Chronicle) can help people.
"More recently her colleague's work led to the amendment of Obama's housing relief plan, which will allow many more Californians to keep their homes than before the Chronicle's coverage of the bill.
"Stella, your post, a sober reminder of what we stand to lose, by a woman who is on both sides of media's digital divide, is why we selected you as the BlogHer of the Week. You gave us the story behind the people in the accident, who they are, and who they saved before being in their own tragedy.
"I hope that you will get to continue to share your story in whichever medium you want to--print or online. We can't live without either."
Consulted by jeanne on March 5, 2009.
A Justice Site
jeannecurran@habermas.org
