Daily Archives: Monday, May 4, 2009

The New York Times Co. said last night that it is notifying federal authorities of its plans to shut down the Boston Globe, raising the possibility that New England’s most storied newspaper could cease to exist within weeks.

continue reading here

Unlike many voices in the emerging online community, I doubt that the loss of so many newspapers is likely to work great benefits on American political discourse.  The failings of prior news gathering and dissemination systems are obvious but a thing is as bad or good only as it stands in comparison to something else.  We don’t know what the media terrain will look like in two or five years but the simple assumption that it is bound to be an improvement looks foolishly romantic to me.  I do not consider Fox an improvement over Walter Cronkite’s CBS news.

Update: Paper saved for now