Leaving Readers Behind

The American newspaper industry is in the middle of the most momentous change in its entire three-hundred-year history. A generation of relentless "corporatization" has resulted in a furious, unprecedented blitz of buying, selling, and consolidation of newspapers, accompanied by dramatic -- and drastic -- change in reporting and coverage of all kinds. Concerned that this phenomenon was going largely unreported, Gene Roberts, legendary reporter and editor, decided to undertake a huge, extended reportorial study of his own industry, what would become the Project on the State of the American Newspaper. Gathering more than two dozen distinguished journalists and writers, Roberts produced a long series of reports in the American Journalism Review, published by the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism, asking the crucial question: Are American communities -- in the very middle of the so-called information explosion -- in danger of becoming less informed than ever?