Newspaper love...

I went to a terrific symposium last night at the Dallas Morning News for all of the community Voices columnists. Many of the regular column writers were there to give advice on how to make a column more interesting, more compelling, and above all, worthy of the time spent reading it. I so appreciated those professionals taking the time out of their long days to share their expertise with us amateurs. It again stoked my desire to become more thoughtful and more critical of my motivations behind my words.

I guess it's a good thing that I have a computer to hide behind at times...sometimes I that "delete" key really is the most important one on the whole keyboard. Too bad the mouth doesn't come with one.

Anyway, I continue to be terribly saddened by the demise of the newspaper world. Yeah, you can get all kinds of news online these days, but where does that content come from? Yup, those pesky reporters that insist on getting paid for their work! I will be very curious to see just how much will go unchecked in the future years with severely limited investigative reporting staff. Do you really think that Nixon would have been brought down by bloggers?

For those of you reading this, make sure that when you buy something at a store today, tell them that you found their ad in the newspaper. Hopefully that will keep them from slashing their print budget, and perhaps it will give this venerable institution a few more years. One step at a time, and we'll all get through this. Times are a-changing, but on this topic, I'll dig my heels in.