Newspapers provide vital, needed services

National Newspaper Week starts today. This is the week daily and weekly newspapers across the country remind readers of the precious guarantees of the First Amendment and toot their own horns about the many services they provide to readers.

In an age of instant communication, newspapers can too easily be regarded as dinosaurs in a digital landscape. But that impression is wrong, and it ignores the reality of the important role newspapers play in our daily lives.

Newspapers sought after tragedy

When terrorists struck in New York and Washington last month, millions of Americans -- and even more millions around the globe -- saw the tragic events as they happened, thanks to the modern miracle of live television. But those same witnesses turned to newspapers for details, explanations and an opportunity to sound off. Newspaper sales and readership skyrocketed in the hours and days after Sept. 11, underscoring the fundamental soundness of newspapers in general and the need for reliable information -- information you can hold in your hands and mull over and read over and over whenever you want -- in particular.

One of the best editors in Missouri is the publisher of the Washington Missourian, a weekly paper just west of the St. Louis metropolitan area. William L. Miller Sr. has distinguished himself as a vigilant journalist whose newspaper consistently wins top awards. Excerpts of Miller's views on the importance of newspapers, published recently in the Missouri Press Association's magazine, are worth sharing:

A day without a newspaper is like a day without your morning coffee, and much, much more of a loss.

A newspaper is part of our daily lives. Without it, there is a gap that modern technology will never be able to fill. All attempts have failed. The depth of news and information and the speed in which one can be informed daily by a newspaper stands alone -- nothing has been invented to match its strength and durability. It's there when you need it.

Hometown newspapers cover a community with an expanse that can't be duplicated by any other medium. From neighborhoods, from personal lives, from city hall, from the county courthouse, from the state Capitol and our nation's dome, a newspaper is there to report and chronicle for posterity what is happening.

A newspaper gives importance to family happenings such as a birth, an engagement, a marriage, a diploma and a death. A newspaper also sheds light on the dark side of our communities: crime, murders, burglaries. ... A newspaper is there to report on accidents and the tragedies that are part of our daily lives. While not as quick as electronic reportings, newspapers bring a depth of news that cannot be equaled.

Newspapers offer opinions, commentaries and letters to the editor that can enrich a community and its citizens. A town without a newspaper that educates as well as informs is a community with little or no future. Newspapers with strength are the ones in communities where the decision makers always ask, "What will the newspaper think about this?" A strong newspaper means a strong community.

The advertising found in a newspaper paves a path to retailers and other advertisers, including those who use the classified pages, who depend on and prosper from a newspaper's presence in homes and elsewhere.

The Newspaper in Education program captures the interest of young readers, and that connection is lasting.

Useful in times of need

People in the community who need help with their problems often call on the newspaper for assistance. Getting their stories across to the community is another public service that newspapers perform. The newspaper is there for them.

Newspapers have a responsibility to serve their communities and their citizens. ...

Newspapers accept their role as public trustees and always are there as guardians when the public needs them.

Life without a newspaper is life unfulfilled and one without a guardian.