Is it too late to save newspapers as check or balance?

"The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them."
-- THOMAS JEFFERSON, 1789

I need to start by saying one thing that will probably annoy a lot of people.

Freedom of the Press is about newspapers and magazines.

So-called broadcast media -- radio and television -- is something else entirely. Just as working people weren't helped when personnel departments became "Human Resources," it didn't do newspapers any good when folks started calling the press the media.

If you think I'm wrong, one fact should prove my point. Radio stations and television stations can only operate under licenses granted them by the government.

And if you believe in this ...

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

... then you see that so-called broadcast media have only some protection under the law.

Newspapers, on the other hand, are free to anyone who wants to start one.

When I was young, most towns of any decent size had at least two newspapers. Market penetration in the early 1950s was more than 100 percent, which meant that most people subscribed to at least one paper and some people subscribed to more than one.

My grandparents lived in a small town in northern Ohio, a town served only by a weekly paper. But they had a Cleveland paper delivered in the morning and a Mansfield paper delivered in the afternoon.

It was pretty much the only way to get the news. TV news was essentially just headlines, especially in the days before communications satellites, when the idea of live video illustrating stories was mostly just a dream.

It really never has changed that much. I stopped watching local TV news in the mid 1990s after sitting through the 11 p.m. report on one of the network affiliates in Los Angeles. I was stunned to realize that by the end of the broadcast, there wasn't one story that wasn't scandal, crime or celebrities in the entire 30 minutes.

I could have watched for a month and never seen news from another country that didn't involve war or natural disaster. Comedian Eddie Izzard got huge laughs from a New York audience when he asked half seriously, "Do you people realize there are other countries?"

Editor's note: FYI, I'm thrilled to know that Izzard -- one of the smartest comics out there -- will be performing in Atlanta on May 11th. Already got tickets.

But in a good newspaper, you get world news. You get all sorts of news in a good paper. For a large part of my adult life, I lived in places where I could get an outstanding newspaper. The Washington Post, the Charlotte Observer, the Denver Post, the Los Angeles Times.

I was actually excited that we were moving to Georgia because I figured I could subscribe to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Sadly, to have the AJC delivered I would have to live one county closer to Atlanta.

Yes, I know good papers are available on the Internet. I pay to read the Post and occasionally the New York Times as well. It isn't the same, though. Reading on a computer, a tablet or a smartphone isn't the same, although my iPad or my Kindle Fire can provide reading material for the bathroom.

I worked for newspapers for nearly 30 years -- seven papers in seven states -- and three of them were papers that did things correctly and tried to be good papers. Two others went out of business, one more was relatively mediocre and the seventh was all over the place in the 18 years I worked there.

The problem is the profit motive. Why should the only business protected in the Bill of Rights not have any special status? Why not at least let them be not-for-profit? Let them worry first about getting the story instead of worrying about the stock price of the paper.

Sadly, it may be too late to make a difference. We're so far down the road of killing off journalism that there may not be an easy place to stop. From Dick Nixon to Donald Trump, Republicans have been attacking the press, and with so few people reading anymore ...

Well, you know where the story ends.

And that's when we may see what Thomas Jefferson feared.