Free Sunshine

Not much comes free these days even though there are some widely
held perceptions to the contrary. The clean air we breathe, the
water we drink and the sunshine we worship all come with a certain
cost or obligation attached. Even our most basic “freedoms” are not
free, as newspapers such as this one never tire from reminding all
of us.
And so we have come to another National Sunshine Week (March
14-20) where newspapers and journalists across America celebrate
individual and collective efforts to promote open government,
freedom of information and the public’s right to know.
This year’s series of Sunshine Week events and editorials comes
when the business of newspapers has rarely been tougher and when
budget-cutting governments require closer scrutiny. The costs of
being a government watchdog and casting sunshine on politicians has
never been higher. And, the price paid to journalists for their
work and content has never been more taken for granted.
We now live in a world that is bombarded with electronic noise
from the Internet. Reliable information and verified facts are
being drowned in a sea of “free content” downloaded onto our smart
phones, laptops and brain cells. When all information and content
is perceived as “free” then what is the real news of the day worth
anymore?
But just like fresh air and clean water, real news does not come
free. Someone has to go get it, make sense out of it, check the
facts and chase down the truth. With so much “pretend” news and
instant Tweetering constantly buzzing in our ears and minds, the
journalists job of “making sunshine” has been made much more
difficult and time consuming.
If a cup of coffee costs more than a dollar, what should a copy
of a newspaper cost? Only fifty cents? On the Internet you pay 99
cents to download a song, but all the news you want is free. How
much do you pay for HBO or cable TV? That cell phone bill every
month keeps going up, right?
The newspaper industry has only itself to blame for most of its
current day business troubles. In a rush to compete with Internet
giants like Google and Yahoo, newspapers started giving away all
their content and archives at no charge. Now, with automobile
listings, classified ads and other revenues declining, many
newspapers have been forced to cut reporter jobs and shrink their
newsrooms. That means less sunshine on local government meetings
and deliberations.
For the record, this newspaper is relatively healthy and strong,
compared to larger and less locally-focused newspapers. But many
more people read our news for free on a growing collection of
websites than continue to pay for it in print.
Can this newspaper survive in a world where fewer and fewer
people are willing to pay for real news? Can local reporters and
editors continue to be paid to be watchdogs over local governments,
school budgets, crime reports and clean air and water protection
programs? The answer is probably not.
During Sunshine Week — and all other weeks of the year —
newspapers, reporters and the American institution of a Free Press
are paid by local advertisers. It has been that way since the mid
1800’s when mass publication of newspapers started. Newspapers once
dominated the distribution of all news and information. Large
cities had as many as 10 different newspapers, where today
sometimes only one remains.
The telegraph, radio, television — and now the Internet — have
whittled away at the newspaper industry’s monopoly and have carved
up large chunks of its advertising revenues. Even so, more people
still get their daily and weekly news from a newspaper or news
organization. Whether that news is delivered on print to a mailbox,
on a news website, downloaded on a smart phone or “aggregated”
somewhere else — all news comes from the same place it always has.
And that is from a sunshine loving journalist.
— Rollie Atkinson