What Good Are Newspapers?

Once upon a time, newspapers were the main source of news. Not only did they report on the mundane events of the day, but investigative journalism was "a thing" and you could count on reporters to dig up items that embarrassed politicians and big business and helped them stay accountable. Not so much anymore. Declining ad revenues due to fewer people reading papers and the proliferation of online journalism has reduced the staff in most newsrooms. This has affected small, local newspapers much harder than the big city dailies. And with declining readership, and just possibly the average reader being stupider than in times past local newspapers seem to devote more time and energy and puff pieces and so-called human interest stories than hard news, or even "news" at all. Our own local rag, the Lincoln Journal-Star is a prime example. Some years ago many of their long-time reports, including crime and political reporters were laid off, while emphasis was placed on their "Living" section columnists. The front section of the paper, the one devoted to national news is thin and anemic and most of the news comes from wire services like Associated Press. Even local stories rely on press releases from the stories' subject than on any reporting by staff. Recently a locally owned  grocery chain decided to close one of it's locations, but was keeping the information from its employees. The Journal-Star was informed of this and was given documentation to back it up, but did not publish this information. Were they protecting an advertiser? Did the stories about puppies and grade school science fairs crowd out the information? The story, if it could be called that, finally made the paper only when the chain made it's own announcement. The story was nothing more than the chain's press release, briefly mentioning the store close while devoting a lot of space to promoting their expansion and remodel at another location. I still enjoy reading newspapers, I read the New York Times every Sunday; I worked for an Omaha newspaper for many years, but in general, newspapers are all but dead, at least locally.