An unlikely advocate for newspaper coverage

With his sharp wit and biting satire, Jon Stewart has frequently taken on the mainstream media for all of its problems. His Daily Show frequently takes great jabs at all of the problems inherent in our 24 hour news cycle and two second attention spans.

However, Jon was quite enthusiastic about the quality of newspaper coverage when speaking at a breakfast at the Democratic Convention. He, however, didn't pull any punches with criticism of cable news.

Simply put, Jon is right. Newspapers can provide long-form, in depth coverage of numerous angles in a way few other media can match. They have also long been great at separating facts from speculation, and keeping opinion clearly delineated. Rarely do newspaper debates develop the emotional powderkeg of TV, or devolve into flamewars like comment strings on the Internet. These are some of the wonderful things about newspapers that got many of us wrapped into the business in the first place.

Unfortunately, I fear he was right about another thing. When he assessed the long term business prospects he said:

newspapers are fighting "a losing battle because they're getting overshadowed."

At least we can kind of understand why we want to win the fight against sliding revenue, newspapers can be truly important for more than getting you the latest Macy's ads.