If you have ever loved a newspaper, this book will provide a gut-churning mix of joy and nostalgia, amazement and disgust, and no small sense of fatalism. Award-winning Chicago Tribune
editor and reporter Madigan collects a powerful array of commentary from journalists and observers, who enumerate the varied forces driving the decline of newspaper readership: the Internet, the consolidation of department stores (and their advertising), metro sprawl, decades of job cutting and the demise of family ownership; the idea that chain papers have “slowly carved out the soul of local papers†is repeated throughout. Highlights include a look at the changing face of the New York Times
and painful stories of once great papers like the Philadelphia Enquirer
and the LA Times
gutted by suits who see themselves “in conflict with sanctimonious and unrealistic idealists.†The editor of Idaho Falls's Post Register
contributes a singular but too brief ray of hope in his consideration of small-town dailies (around 1,420 of them) where, under the ownership of smaller companies, honest journalism thrives and profit margins can run in excess of 20 percent. The most daunting questions come from David T.Z. Mindich's examination of the uninformed citizenry: “making sure young people see themselves as citizens should be the priority of every news executive in the country.†Though it may be too late to reverse the trends examined here, this anthology will inspire a healthy measure of resistance. (Aug.)
