Is the press contributing to its own suicide?

As we approach Independence Day, it is sobering to recall how much the freedoms it delineates have been secured by information in the print press.  The aspirations of Tom Paine, the elegant phrases of the Declaration of Independence, the robust debate over the powers enumerated in the Constitution — all of these have depended upon approval by a citizenry that was able to pass judgment on the issues because of information presented by pamphlets and newspapers of the day.

All this is in real danger of eclipse.  I am infinitely saddened by what is happening to newspapers, especially in Connecticut, but broadly around the country.  The bad time newspapers are experiencing is directly related to the future of democracy in the United States of America.

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A conspicuous example of the issues at stake is in the plight of the Hartford Courant, which proudly asserts in its front-page flag, or nameplate, that it was founded in 1764 and is the oldest continuously published newspaper in America. You may have read of the difficulties the Courant is experiencing in coping with an edict to downsize its staff and editorial content by 25 percent — not because of its own problems but because of those of its absentee owner, the Chicago Tribune, which is attempting to cope with a $13 billion debt.

     When the Tribune acquired the Courant along with the Los Angeles Times and  Baltimore Sun, as  well as the Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time in Connecticut, it seemed as if editorial concerns might remain paramount. But after the Los Angeles Times pulled out of the arrangement, the Tribune was acquired by a Chicago real estate developer, Sam Zell, who also owns the Chicago Cubs. Zell is using all means, including forced downsizing, to meet payments on the debt.

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What is happening to the Courant is an exaggerated example of what is happening to other respected papers. Such leaders as The New York Times and The Washington Post have been coping with severe declines in advertising and circulation and have been cutting back their staffs and the amount of coverage. They have been considerate in their cutbacks. Yet the energetic editor of the Connecticut Post in Bridgeport, James H. Smith, suddenly found himself without a job last Thursday with his name removed from the paper as if he had never existed.

The Connecticut Post is owned by Media News Group, which also owns the Danbury News-Times, the Stamford Advocate and the Greenwich Time, as well as half a dozen weeklies in Connecticut and the Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, Mass. Downsizing has been carried out on a wholesale scale, and staff members are swapped back and forth as if they were pawns in a chess game. Their informational responsibilities are subordinated to the demand for greater profits.  Often chain newspapers are regarded as "properties" to be bought and sold like fish.

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A couple of generations ago, many newspapers were family owned and were content with profits of 5 to 10 percent that permitted them to invest in new equipment and still take home a few dollars. But those days are long since gone, beginning when some papers opened their shares for public purchase. Judgments previously made in the newsroom now were more and more made in the boardroom, and greed displaced dedication as a primary motivation. It is as if we were playing Dr. Kevorkian in an assisted suicide.

Some of the decline is traceable to the advent of television, the Internet, iPod and the like. Youngsters are reading less and get their primary information from other sources. Some newspapers in their effort to compete have substituted entertainment and trivia for hard news. Meanwhile, coverage of foreign news, except for the misbegotten war in Iraq, have been reduced substantially. Foreign correspondents are fewer and farther between these days.

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 Yet there is no substitute for investigative reporting and for the written record, and we are going to have to hope that there is enough wisdom on all sides to keep the print press alive. I tell myself that community newspapers may well outlast the others because they are more vital to the lives of the people they serve and no one else covers local events and investigates local problems with the detail they offer.

Maybe that is wishful thinking on this Independence Day, but it is the most cheerful note I can muster after a rather glum series of events. Let's celebrate what we have and do our best to keep it.

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I should like to close with a tribute to Glynne Robinson Betts, the gentle and accomplished woman who was publisher of The Lakeville Journal and The Millerton News from 1987 to 1991, when Robert Hatch was editor. Not only was Glynne a skilled photographer — she had studied with Ansel Adams, among others — she took part in several community activities. She did a lot of physical work at The Journal, and I well remember when she painted a stairway there. She invested in The Journal when its finances were at a low ebb.

Glynne is fondly remembered by those who worked with her. She has an honorable and respected place among the persons who worked hard to preserve an independent role for these newspapers.