Journalism has served us well for 350 years; don’t give up on it now

As a book publisher, I was disheartened to read that The New York Daily News was slashing its newsroom staff in half. More alarming is that, according to Pew Research Center, 36 percent of the country’s largest newspapers have experienced layoffs since January 2017.

I assumed that readers were just going digital, but the study finds that a quarter of the highest-trafficked news outlets have also experienced layoffs.

What I concluded was that it’s professional journalism that is under siege.

A huge number of people get their news from TV. Then comes social media: bold headlines on Facebook or 280-character messages on Twitter. Pew notes that two-thirds of Americans say friends are an important way they get news.

Readers of The State understand that the best way to get the complete picture is to read it from professional journalists. Not to hear it at the gym or glance at it on your iPhone. Whether in a newspaper, a magazine or a book, carefully reading allows you the opportunity to process, evaluate and come to your own conclusion.

Since the first newspaper was printed in 1665, journalism has been the most effective way of sharing news and ideas. Let’s hope it’ll be like that for centuries more.

The State publishes a cross section of the letters we receive from South Carolinians in order to provide a forum for our community and also to allow our community to get a good look at itself, for good or bad. The letters represent the views of the letter writers, not necessarily of The State.