Thursday, May 8, 2008

Stop the Presses

Tragically, this comes after a period of deliberate diminishment of newspapers by their owners - particularly the big chains. The Knight-Ridder chain is out of business because its model failed. But a lot of newspapers are much less important in their communities and to their readers than they used to be, and the result is that they don't have a good defensive bullwark from which to fight the war we're all engaged in.

So says Bob Kaiser, Associate Editor of the Washington Post, in the documentary Stop the Presses, who suggests that in some ways, the decline of the American newspaper has been a self-made phenomenon.

The film, currently screening on the festival circuit, takes a hard look at the newspaper industry, examining both the causes of its decline, and what that means for democracy in America.

Check out the video page for excerpts from the film.

There's no information about a California showing yet, but as soon as one is announced we'll share the information here.

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