Review editorial
October 7, 2008
By Staff
Newspapers are key to our democracy
Your city budget is being impacted by the recession, just like you. Graffiti is on the rise, but does that mean gang activity is, too? The house down the street was burglarized and you only found out about it when you read the paper. Are there more empty storefronts than usual, or does it just seem that way? Thanks to the obituary notice, you were able to offer some comfort to friends.
The television and radio stations don’t cover our 5th or 45th district legislative races, so where can I get good information to help me vote? For that matter, neither do the daily newspapers. What’s a caring voter to do?
Imagine for a minute your city without its own newspaper. Imagine how many different websites you’d have to Google to find out about most of what you read in just one issue of the Sammamish Review.
Then imagine our country without a news media, the only industry given protected rights in the U.S. Constitution. Without journalists, would we still live in a democracy?
Failing newspapers are not new. In just the last year, we’ve seen the demise of the daily King County Journal, and last winter, the city of Orting in Pierce County lost its community newspaper. The losses still hurt the communities they served.
Oct. 5-11 is National Newspaper Week. We usually let it blow on by, but with the world in crisis, it seems more fitting than ever to remind our readers to think about the importance of newspapers.
The Sammamish Review is proud to play a role in the strength of Sammamish. We are your government watchdogs, we provide celebratory scrapbook fillers, and our letters to the editor are the original blog.
Ignorance is not bliss: newspapers like the Review, focused on good journalism, give you a capsulized version of what you need to know about your tax dollars, growth and development, new directions in education, diverse viewpoints and so much more.
But we are not immune to a slow economy. Your readership matters, even more so when you support the businesses who advertise here, paying for your newspaper, keeping democracy alive.
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