The Future of the Fourth Estate

Michael Smerconish, a lawyer turned radio talk show host, whose political views are usually not my own, has an interesting take on why newspapers are necessary in this day and age of electronic reporting. According to Smerconish, without the work of investigative reporters, many of the sins of corruption that transpire in our public leaders as well as our corporate ones, would go undetected.

Think Woodward and Bernstein who broke the Watergate story. In Philadelphia we can look no further than the current investigation into State Senator Vince Fumo that was broken by several crackerjack newspaper reporters. Think 60 Minutes for heavens sake--many of their stories begin with something they read in the papers.

Who, asks Smerconish, is going to hold our leaders accountable if nobody holds a mirror up to their faces and asks the hard questions? "The survival of the historic watchdog role of the Fourth Estate is on the line," he writes.

All of which is valid and true, but I think Smerconish may be missing the point. He may get his news from the paper but it is also available on the internet. Just because paper newspapers may go away does not mean that reporting skills are becoming an endangered species. In fact, if anything with the presence of blogs and chat rooms and yes even Twitter, reporting is everywhere by everyone. True, journalistic scoops take time: sources have to be verified and facts checked, but reporting is not going to go away. It is just going to look different.

I am just as sad as the next guy about the demise of newspapers. I truly do believe that as a sociological phenomenon, what we write down in print for public consumption is a fascinating picture of who and what we are at any given time (not just news but ads, photos, even captions) but having just spent weeks perusing the online archives of major newspapers for stories about Secretariat and Seabiscuit, I can assure you that the news survives as an electronic archive. It is just more specialized. You can read all you want about Seabiscuit but you won't see the ad for ladies shoes that might have shared the same page unless you go hunt down the microfiche.

I do think we need the fourth estate to watch everything we do, but I'm not convinced that they are going away.