The End of an Era?

I still like to hold a newspaper in my hands when I read it. I can't get used to reading all my news online. I do it because I have to sometimes, but I don't like it. I look forward to opening the New York Times and the Detroit Free Press in the morning, and coming home to the Ann Arbor News in the evening, despite all the recent changes that have made the latter much more USA-Today-ish than it used to be. I want to read about national environmental issues, Great Lakes protection, and my local watershed with the paper in my hands.

But this opportunity is slowly--and literally--slipping away. Newspapers are disappearing in communities across the country and environmental reporters have often been the first to go on the way down. Here in Michigan, you see and hear about it all the time. And, along the way we are losing the vital news of our local natural resources.

Former Booth reporter and current associate director of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University, Dave Poulson writes about this sad phenomenon on the Great Lakes Town Hall. He refers to this as "the environmental impact of the mainstream media meltdown".

I encourage all to read, reply, and get angry.....And, then, get motivated to find (and support) alternative avenues to outstanding environmental journalism.