Newspapers serve as democracy's watchdogs

While Hoosiers may increasingly choose to receive their news electronically, be it via laptop or cell phone, newspapers haven't lost that unique role they play in our community and democracy.

More than half of the news found on Web sites originated with a newspaper staff. It's your local newspaper, not the radio, TV or blogger, who attends local government meetings from your school board, to town or city council to county commissioners.

It's the newspaper reporter who monitors police and fire department activity, covers the Friday night high school football game, and tells you what new business opened on Main Street or whether the factory is considering a layoff during tough economic times.

Nobody rivals a newspapers breadth and depth of local news coverage, but beyond the service this reporting provides to interested readers lies the press role as the watchdog of democracy.

Just by having a reporter present at local government meetings or checking police incident reports or reading civil and criminal case filings, the opportunity for government malfeasance is reduced. For most communities, it lies with the newspaper to report controversial actions either taken or contemplated by local and state government. Newspapers are generally regarded as a fair reporter of the facts. The editorial can be found on the opinion page, but the news sections attempt to cover both sides of an issue.

Without newspapers acting as the eyes and ears of Hoosiers, the good-old-boy network could act in a vacuum free from public outcry -- working to further political agendas rather than for the community's good.

Newspapers aren't dying. They are too valuable to their communities to die.

Newspapers still deliver.

They deliver the news and the advertising that people want to help them with their daily lives, whether it's keeping an eye out on the school board's budget or a sale on appliances.