Seth's Blog: When newspapers are gone, what will you miss? : Neuron Culture

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I write articles on science, medicine, nature, culture and other matters for the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Slate, National Geographic, Scientific American Mind, and other publications, and am working on my fourth book, The Orchid and the Dandelion, which expands on my recent December 2009 Atlantic article. In August 2010, I'll be moving to London for a year to work on the book. I'll also serve as a senior fellow at City University London's MA science journalism program.

You're encouraged to check out my third book Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral, which traces the strangest but most forgotten controversy in Darwin's career; subscribe to Neuron Culture by email; see more of my work at my main website ; or track Twitter feed, my Google Reader shared items, or my Tumblr log, which gets it all.

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Seth's Blog: When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?

Posted on: January 19, 2009 9:58 AM, by David Dobbs

Seth Godin offers another take on what we might miss if/when newspapers die: investigative journalism.

What's left is local news, investigative journalism and intelligent coverage of national news. Perhaps 2% of the cost of a typical paper. I worry about the quality of a democracy when the the state government or the local government can do what it wants without intelligent coverage. I worry about the abuse of power when the only thing a corrupt official needs to worry about is the TV news. I worry about the quality of legislation when there isn't a passionate, unbiased reporter there to explain it to us.
....
The reality is that this sort of journalism is relatively cheap (compared to everything else the newspaper had to do in order to bring it to us.) Newspapers took two cents of journalism and wrapped in ninety-eight cents of overhead and distraction. ....

I'm not worried about how muckrakers will make a living. Tree farmers, on the other hand, need to find a new use for newsprint.

Hat tip: Boing Boing