This is no time for Internet triumphalism-Democracy is at stake

Adrian Monck has brought my attention to a good article in this months New Republic.

Entitled Goodbye to the Age of Newspapers (Hello to a New Era of Corruption) Paul Starr, argues that with newspapers seemingly in terminal decline should we actually care

regardless of whether newspapers successfully adapt to the Internet, new and better sources of news will continue developing online, and they will fill whatever void newspapers leave.

But care we should

This is no time for Internet triumphalism: the stakes are too high. Nearly all other news media, except for online news, are also retrenching, and--particularly at the metropolitan, regional, and state levels--the online growth is not close to offsetting the decline elsewhere. Despite all the development of other media, the fact is that newspapers in recent years have continued to field the majority of reporters and to produce most of the original news stories in cities across the country.

The internet in Paul's view contains little reporting

and still less of it subject to any rigorous fact-checking or editorial scrutiny

This then raises the old question of the fourth estate and who will put the establishment under scrutiny

The reality is that resources for journalism are now disappearing from the old media faster than new media can develop them. The financial crisis of the press may thereby compound the media's crisis of legitimacy.