An important read on newspapers

I recommend you go to the following link to a New York Times article on why we need newspapers and why it's important they not all disappear, especially, city to city.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/books/review/Evans-t.html

They really are, in their best incarnation, the "fourth estate". In that best situation, they are a check on government--local, city, state, federal, everything.

If newspapers aren't there to do the "bigger picture" information-gathering and reporting, who is?

Also, there is that "local identity" that comes from bringing us all together, with that same information and events.

For cities like Kansas City and St. Paul/Minneapolis, for instance, we are even more dependent on them for a sense of the entire area.

And then there are the larger metropolitan areas like Los Angeles and, yes, New York, etc., that need both that information and cohesion that, I think, only a newspaper can bring.

After the 8 years of Constitution and law-breaking we got from George W. Bush, it seems all the more obvious that we need a vigilant and independent newspaper system, in specific, but media, in general.

That on top of the fact that the corporations and big business have gotten into skewing the news to their own benefits.

It's a scary world out there, folks.

Without good, searching and reporting media, it's going to get a lot scarier.

Ironically, sadly, frustratingly, the one thing I think that can save a newspaper is supporting the reporters, researchers and writers so they can and do get the good, hard-hitting stories readers can expect and look forward to. That is the opposite of what has happened here, in Kansas City, with our own newspaper. It's been weakened and shrunken mightily.

If newspapers don't do good reporting and writing, particularly now, with the advent of the computer and blogs and what not, what purpose do they serve?

Kansas City Star?