One, our dominance in every local market –- in print and online -- means we're still the source of most news in this country. We'll keep that dominance for a long time. We have the advantage, as Tom Rosenstiel says, of more boots on the ground. Those boots give us the advantage of covering important news that no one else covers, and of presenting a high barrier to market entry for any competitor.

I'm told the blogosphere is going to eat our lunch. Well, the blogosphere, for the most part, spends its infinitely expanding gas talking about what we, newspapers, write, not what some blogger reported. If newspapers disappeared tomorrow it would be like pulling the fuel rods from a nuclear reactor: The lights would go out and the blogosphere wouldn’t produce a single BTU of intellectual heat.

"How many reporters does Yahoo have at City Hall? How many correspondents from Google are risking their lives in Iraq?"It's the same with the Internet in general. When someone tells me they get their news from the Internet, I want to say: "Oh yeah? So, tell me again, how many reporters does Yahoo have at City Hall? How many correspondents from Google are risking their lives in Iraq?"

People working for dot.coms go to jail for stock fraud or backdating options, not for disclosing important truths and protecting their confidential source.

News on the Internet –- news from real communities, new about real governments and real wars –- comes from flesh-and-blood reporters. And they're dispatched from our newsrooms, not the soulless zero-gravity of the Internet.

Another newspaper strength we must carry into the future is our investigative and enterprise reporting. I prefer Len Downie and Bob Kaiser’s phrase, "accountability reporting," because it recalls our constitutional mandate to hold the powerful to account. Whatever you call it, newspapers are still the source of almost all serious accountability reporting in the nation...

 

I believe journalism is important. I don't think free people or free societies can exist without a free press. I believe that's what journalism is for. For that reason, my newspaper will fight for open government and the First Amendment.

I also believe that if we produce journalism worthy of that First Amendment, and if we hold to our principles, if we cover our communities with affection but tell the truth, we can survive this crisis as we've survived so many others.

The challenges we face are great. But the talents, the standards and the creativity of the people in our newsrooms –- and of America's editors -– can surmount any challenge.