"The Oxygen Of The Modern Age"

I have a highly unusual request.

After reading this post, please close out of viewing this page, turn off your computer, and pick up and read a newspaper (if you don’t have one, go to a store and buy one).

We need to reacquaint ourselves with this admittedly ancient form of communication. However, I would argue that, beside the telephone, the newspaper is the most important tool for acquiring information that we have.

I’m motivated to say this because of the present circumstances of Knight Ridder Newspapers, Inc. I’ve linked to a column by Will Bunch that does a great job of providing the background on this.

For anyone unfamiliar with this story, here it is. Some of Bushco’s friends in the business community bought up the majority of the Knight Ridder shares and now want to sell the company (Bunch provides the details). Why on earth would they do such a dastardly thing, especially when, in the eyes of a lot of bottom-line business people, the stock of the company is apparently underperforming? Well, consider that The Philadelphia Inquirer ran an excellent series last year called, “21 Reasons To Vote for John Kerry for President,” in which they really did explain how Kerry differed from Bush on critical issues and allowed Bush supporters to respond, and also consider the zero tolerance that Bush supporters have for a contrary point of view, and you get the idea.

Here is more background on Private Capital Management LP of Naples, FL and Southeastern Asset Management of Memphis, TN (I think you know the “color” of these states), the two business entities driving the breakup of Knight Ridder.

If this does happen (possibly next spring), I think a scenario where the papers are sold from Knight Ridder to other media corporations, though undesirable, could be an outcome we can live with unless the content is severely restricted (big “unless” there, I know). Also, this column in a similar vein by Jeff Jarvis, as far as I’m concerned, is bogus; what he describes would be the total corporatization (word?) of news content to ensure that the omnipresent voice of Bushco drowns out everyone else.

Besides, Jarvis assumes that the Knight Ridder papers aren't already implementing cost-cutting measures. A neighbor of my in-laws was a senior editor at the Philadelphia Daily News who took a buyout package, and I can assure you that cost-cutting measures are being throroughly implemented.

However, I think the scenario Bunch describes in his column, whereby the Inquirer/Daily News could be sold to a consortium of venture capitalists or other private investors, maybe even an endowment, would be the best result in this area.

Even though the motivation behind this is to silence a contrary point of view as far as I’m concerned, this could turn into an opportunity for traditional print media outlets to embrace blogs and other internet-based forms of communication. At philly.com, Dan Rubin has done that already to a degree, though I would argue that something is needed more along the lines of a blog search engine available from that site. Yes, I admit that I have a powerful motivation of self interest for saying that, but if you’re going to embrace electronic media properly, why go half way?

And just as a reminder, Leonard Pitts, Jr. explains why, whatever Knight Ridder may or may not evolve into, it should NEVER stop producing a newspaper regardless of the consequences or whatever future form it may take (registration required).

By the way, the title of this post is one definition of information and what it means. And you’ll never guess who came up with it.