The end of 'news' as we knew it...

I discovered journalism in college. I had two teachers. Mal Salter was my journalism teacher and the college's Public Relations Director. Mal hired me in my sophomore year to work part time in the PR office. When he left the college, Pete Durham replaced him. I continued to work for Pete, and he referred me to the Farmington Valley Herald where I became the editor after graduating from college. I served as editor for two years and did the job part time while I taught school.

Mal and Pete grew up at the Hartford Courant. The Hartford Courant is a serious newspaper and is the oldest newspaper in the United States.

I loved these guys. They were affectionate, family focused, patriotic, skeptical and had a 'bull shit' meter that they wore on their rolled-up sleeves. They worked hard to get the story. They were fair. They wrote good leads, good headlines and made you want to read the whole story. They had trusted sources and used there authenticity to put people at ease as they talked. They believed they were the fourth pillar of the American constitution just behind the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government. I absorbed that style like a sponge and it shaped all that I do today.

I grew up with the assumption that the press wouldn't change. Over the past 20 years, I've watched in horror as the fourth estate disintegrated. The last bastion of the that estate was Tim Russert. I hardly ever missed an episode of "Meet the Press" . Tim was Mal Salter and Pete Durham on steroids. He had all the same qualities...just larger than life.

As the American audience developed a giant case of attention deficit disorder, TV news went to entertainment and finally split into left and right wing info-tainment outlets. All the prinicpals of journalism are gone. Pretty faces read garbage....over and over again. Newspapers are shrinking and giving way to blogs which have no value for the principals of journalism.

Tim Russert was the last journalist standing...and, now he is gone. He can't be replaced. There was no succession plan. Tom Brokaw will come back for a few months to let us down genltly. Then, Tom will fade out.

When Tom fades out, there should be a funeral for journalism.