Another Nail in Newspapers' Coffins

This question appeared in today’s Washington Post political chat:

The Democrats passed an Energy Bill that everyone admitted NO ONE READ. Yet, the media portrayal of it is "green jobs" creator and solve our dependence on foreign oil. Has any journalist read the Cap-and-Trade Bill? If not, why parrot the Democrat talking points and not give the public the specifics of the Bill? Is skepticism dead?

Here is the reply:

Colleagues have closely followed the committee hearings and other negotiations leading up to last week's vote, and the measure still has to go before the Senate, which may greatly alter the bill's current form.

Remember also that the House Energy & Commerce Committee briefly hired a speed reader in case Republicans ordered a full reading of big portions of the bill. That threat never materialized, but it would certainly take a fast reader to get through it.

I encourage YOU to read it, and then find a way to share your thoughts about it.

It’s the last sentence that disturbs me. Granted, in a perfect world, we would all take the time to read these bills and understand them, then send informed opinions to our elected representatives. The problem is, we don’t have the time, and we don’t have the expertise to make suitable sense of the arcane facts and language. This is what we depend on newspapers for, to digest and analyze the important parts for us, and here’s a reporter telling us to feel free to figure it out for ourselves, and let him know. They apparently don’t have the time.

Every day newspapers make the prospect of living without them a little less disturbing.