freedom of press
I frequently find myself in discussions about the death of newspapers. And I always offer the same response: Newspapers won’t disappear. The national dailies and large metros will suffer but most will survive. The small dailies and weeklies will do fine. The days of 40-percent profit margins have yielded to a 10-percent return for a good year. The content will change — breaking news and aggressive depth coverage will move to the Web. Page counts will drop and delivery days will lessen. I expect some “pay” papers to move to “free” distribution.
I give a questionnaire each semester to my “Introduction to News Writing and Reporting” class to get to know students better.
“Who was your best teacher and why?” “What rumors have you heard about me?” “John Lennon or John Mayer?”
A few semesters back, I included this question: “What should happen to someone in this class who gets caught cheating?”
With the answers came the expected penalties such as a failing grade on the assignment, some kind of extra work involving ethical decision making and ousting the culprit from class.
