General Discussion

in fact many of those would make use of AP,UPI, Reuters etc. and some would even have arrangements with news syndicates that carried some of the proprietary content from those big papers I mentioned. But your question of cause/effect is exactly my point about why a paper that is the statewide paper needs to be a different animal than the one that is from the small town of 30,000 people. Everything is not always about compete/profit. Some of the most "profitable" is also the worst. I think that we have to treat news and information and access as a public good. I don't think it should be there or not based on what is popular, popular opinion or what "aligns" with a view. I agree with you that people can fall into reading their "favorites" and that can have a negative result on them applying open mindedness and critical thinking. Even the ancient Greeks fought and argued about information, format and sources. Our struggle always is to seek what we don't know, listen for what we haven't heard, judge it with an open mind and remember that reconsideration is healthy.