Obama concerned about newspapers

Saying that he is a "big newspaper junkie," President Barack Obama expressed hope Friday that newspapers can find their way through the financial crisis in which most are now mired. In an Oval Office interview with editors from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, the president spoke of the vital role journalism and newspapers play in American society. "Journalistic integrity, you know fact-based reporting, serious investigative reporting, how to retain those ethics in all these different new media and how to make sure that it's paid for, is really a challenge," President Obama said. "But it's something that I think is absolutely critical to the health of our democracy." Across the country, newspapers are struggling to maintain readership and advertising revenue that has been lost to the Internet. Thousands of journalists have been laid off, and over the past year several newspapers have closed. The Rocky Mountain News in Denver shut down, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer moved to the Web, and several large newspaper corporations filed for bankruptcy, including the Tribune Company, which operates the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. President Obama said he has noted the trend. "I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context," he said, "that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding. "What I hope is that people start understanding if you're getting your newspaper over the Internet, that that's not free. And there's got to be a way to find a business model that supports that." Craig Aaron, senior program director of Free Press, said, "President Obama's leadership is needed to put the future of journalism on the national agenda. Now is not the time for bailouts, but it is a moment for forward-looking policies that will support local and diverse media ownership, encourage experiments and innovations, and invest in a world-class public media system. Our concern should not be for newspapers -- or not just newspapers -- but rather for newsrooms and keeping reporters on the beat."