Is there anything more sad than listening to an older person reminisce about the golden age of newspapers?

They tell stories about how they watched their parents read the morning paper while drinking their coffee, and how they were absolutely not to be disturbed until they had read it from cover to cover.

The nostalgia is practically dripping from them like so many buckets of sweat as they claim that thins just won’t be the same without that daily paper.

As you might have guessed, I am not one of these people. I grew up digesting my news on television or on the web and the paper holds no special place in my heart. I find them cumbersome, old-fashioned, quaint, and entirely too difficult to unfold. That being said, I am anxious about the future of our nation’s newspapers.

Why? Several reasons:

1. Somebody needs to hold them accountable

Newspapers are still the best place to hold the powers that be accountable for their actions, or lack-their-of. No self-respecting politician will quake in their boots if a scandal is reported on a blog that with a daily readership of less than a hundred. However, that same scandal appearing on the front page of the New York Times is still something they don’t want to see.

2. Bloggers NEED newspapers

There are a few websites that do their own reporting, but they are very few and far between. By and large, bloggers rely on traditional media outlets to report the facts, then we provide our own spin. Because bloggers are generally unpaid for their work they aren’t going to go out and develop relationships with sources that provide the news that our democracy so desperately needs to function.

3. The Dumb-Down Effect

Without print media, many Americans will turn to alternative sources for their news and opinions, and while I like what that will mean for bloggers and internet news outlets, it also means more people will get their news from television and radio.

If you can actually manage to sit through a full hour of a political talk show on any of the 3 major cable networks (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News,) then you either have an iron stomach or you have very low standards for your political discourse. The traditional print columnist will be largely replaced by the blithering, partisan pundit until 2.0 outlets can find a healthy economic model. That does not bode well both for my heart burn and for our country.

So, what is to be done?

David Simon, former reporter from The Baltimore Sun and creator of the acclaimed HBO series, The Wire, has a good idea. In an article for In These Times, Simon suggests a non-profit model for newspapers:

“…a non-profit model intrigues, especially if that model allows for locally-based ownership and control of news organizations. The government should pursue making a nonprofit status for newspapers and creating financial or tax-based incentives to facilitate the transfer of ailing newspaper chains to local nonprofits.…”

Simon also recognizes that the newspapers are also primarily responsible for their own downfall by cutting staff reporters in pursuit of short-term profits. It’s an excellent read and it addresses the issues inherent to this changing of the guard in a very fair way.

There are a number of problems with the non-profit model, but thus far it’s the best suggestion that I’ve heard regarding how to deal with this.

The only method of action that we absolutely cannot afford to pursue is no action at all.

The free market fundamentalists will cry bloody murder if the government starts bailing out newspapers, and I can understand that frustration, but once again, it’s the lesser of two evils. If traditional journalism is allowed to fail before a 2.0 model becomes really viable, then we might as well throw in the towel on this American experiment.

The old gray ladies of reporting have done an awful job of maintaining the third estate, especially over the last decade. While somebody should have been asking tough questions, these papers enthusiastically supported the invasion of Iraq and the bogus story to justify it. When we should have been in the streets demanding a re-count in 2000, these papers were too busy following the exploits of pop music superstars.

Over the next four years they will probably do an equally wretched job of keeping their idol candidate in check.

Yes, they have done a horrendous job of holding the government and other powerful institutions accountable, but the sad fact is, they’re the only bullet that we have right now.

A non-profit model for newspapers makes a hell of a lot of sense to me. What do you think?