Guest editorial

Finally, a website that tells the other side — newspapers will survive!
This is for everyone who has sent me an e-mail about yet another blog that predicts the imminent end of newspapers.
You can stop writing the obituary. A new website — www.NewspaperProject.org — makes the renewed case that "people depend on newspapers . . . and we're depending on you. Get involved. Join the discussion about the future of newspapers."
There was a full-page color advertisement in Monday's Richmond Times-Dispatch (like the Review, part of the Media General family) noting more people read newspapers than watched the Super Bowl. It was the first salvo fired in addition to the collection of opinion pieces displayed on the website.
The ad, produced by The Newspaper Project, is a powerful message — one that our readers and our advertisers need to see, and one that our industry must continuously highlight to demonstrate the strength of our products.
NewspaperProject.org was launched this year by a small group of newspaper executives to support a constructive exchange of information and ideas about the future of newspapers.
A box on the home page of the website states, "While we acknowledge the challenges facing the newspaper industry in today's rapidly changing media world, we reject the notion that newspapers — and the valuable content the newspaper journalists provide — have no future. Unlike websites that feature negative, gloom-and-doom stories about newspapers, this website will be devoted to insightful articles, commentary, and research that provide a more balanced perspective on what newspaper companies can do to survive in the years ahead."
One of the website's organizers is Donna Barrett, president and chief executive officer of Alabama-based Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., which owns 89 community dailies. Let's just say she's outspoken in her criticism about how our industry has been portrayed and in particular the negative coverage our own newspapers have produced about the industry they're in.
In a commentary published last week, Barrett listed the top arguments:
"Newspapers are very much alive and growing when you consider the print and online audience together. And they talk to far more people than their radio, television, and Internet competitors.
"Newspapers have earned the public's trust because they employ professional journalists to verify news for truth, accuracy, and context, and they are usually the first source of local news.
"Advertisers continue to invest in newspapers because they deliver results. They still move goods and services more reliably than other forms of promotion.
"Newspapers remain essential to our democratic system of government, serving as a watchdog against crime and corruption, and a guide dog for information that allows the public to make informed decisions on the issues of the day."
The Newspaper Project rationale also includes the Barrett point I've heard her make many times in industry group meetings: "Newspapers don't have an audience problem. Newspapers have a revenue problem, driven primarily by the recession."
The Newspaper Project doesn't deny the newspaper industry has its challenges in finding a long-term sustainable business model in an age when anyone with a computer can be a publisher, and advertisers are slow to spend or are not spending at all in tough economic times.
Still, the The Times-Dispatch's and the Review’s steady drumbeat is that our value to the community remains strong. We must continue to deliver passionate, level-headed arguments that counter the perception that the end is near because no one reads newspapers.
It simply isn't true.
We're in an unprecedented era of many sources for news and information. Newsprint is just one way to receive your daily dose of news. It's going to last as long as the customers want it in that form.
Thanks to the Newspaper Project for helping to say so.