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It's true, and unfortunate, that many news organizations are run with the bottom line being the biggest factor to the owners. And it means that there are fewer bureaus, fewer foreign bureaus, and fewer reporters in the remaining bureaus. On the other hand we can read blogs and news sites from all over the world. There are plenty of people willing to keep providing news reports for free. It is up to us as individuals to sort out what is reliable and what isn't. That cannot be a role for government bureaucrats or politicians.

We are going through a period comparable to changing from horse and buggy to cars. A lot of shake-up that is better left to market forces. Especially with something as sacred as news and its protector, the First Amendment. The government has no business picking winners and losers. If a government entity bails out the last remaining newspaper in a city, is that newspaper's coverage of that entity tainted? It's certainly suspect.

In some cities, college and even high school journalism departments have flip-cams and other high quality, low-cost video equipment and send students out to cover school board and city hall meetings. It's obviously not as desirable as having professional journalists who have covered the beat for years, but it is an industry in flux, and often these students will do a better job than hardened reporters who have lost their passion.

One of the worst things that has happened to the newspaper industry is Craig's List, which is where people place classified ads for little or nothing, and people go to those classified ads looking for anything from a job, to a prostitute to a used car.

Jack Shafer of Slate.com did a story (web site) back in 2006, citing a story from a Harvard Business School publication that traced the history of newspaper consolidation, and found that between 1953 and 1980, the number of family-owned newspapers went from 1,300 to 700, and that the factors included technology, labor unions, and tax codes.

The bottom line is that consolidation is part of the natural evolution of news. It means different things in different markets. This (web site) story from 2008 details the consolidation of several San Francisco Bay area publications that more or less went in together to save costs, but have still had to let many people go.

But AIM Editor Cliff Kincaid, in the book that he co-authored, The Death of Talk Radio?, (web site) and I have been warning (web site) for years that what Speaker Pelosi―and Senators John Kerry, Dick Durbin and others want is a return to the Fairness Doctrine. Our associate Bethany Stotts also wrote an excellent piece (web site) describing how the current plan by President Obama is to use localism or diversity of ownership as a ruse to accomplish the same goal. Republican Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana has gathered quotes (web site) on his website from a number of leading Democrats who have openly advocated for a return to the Fairness Doctrine.

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