Our layoffs are your loss too

Newspapers across the country have been shedding people and coverage to cut costs.

You have a stake in how this plays out, whether you're holding a piece of wood fiber right now or a plastic mouse.Newspapers are special. I can't pretend to be objective about that, but I still think it's true.

One of the pleasures this business gives me is seeing the excitement people show when the newspaper pays attention to something they've done ... unless it's something bad. Readers stick articles onto the refrigerator and tuck them into Bibles.

The Seattle Times said Monday it is eliminating nearly 200 jobs.

Lots of businesses are laying off employees, and while the pain is heavy for the people directly involved, the loss the rest of us feel depends on the business.

Newspapers provide an essential public service.

Good newspapers are forums for the exchange of ideas, generally trustworthy sources of information, public watchdogs. At our best we are the eyes, ears and voice of a community.

But most people can't afford to pay a lot of money for those services, which brings us to the gloom hanging over the newspaper industry.

Good journalism costs money, and technological change has played havoc with our primary source of cash, advertising.

Sure, circulation has dropped, too, but the money readers pay for a paper is more token than anything. Your paper is subsidized by advertisers.

The Internet actually puts newspaper content in front of more eyes, but at the same time it sucks away the ad dollars that pay for that content.

So, like the music industry, we have to figure out new ways to pay for what we do.

Turn on the radio and you'll hear KUOW, the Seattle public-radio station, holding its spring pledge drive. Public radio and public television exist because the services they provide wouldn't survive in the profit-driven commercial market.

Newspapers are a rare balancing act between public service and business pressures. No one has figured out how to fund journalism in this new environment.

Newspaper Web sites bring in only a fraction of the dollars needed to support news gathering. Some papers hope to get a few pennies from bloggers and Web sites that use news content.

The Internet is sometimes seen as an eruption of new voices and new information sources, but an amazing amount of what it offers is based on the legwork of newspaper reporters.

Maybe it's not amazing. Web producers want material they can trust, so where else are they going to get it?

Journalists aren't perfect, but most work hard to get things right.

It isn't just a job for most of us. We believe we play crucial roles in a community's conversations.

It's work that feels like a calling, which makes the loss of so many good people hurt worse.

They lose and so does the public.

Jerry Large's column appears Monday and Thursday. Reach him at 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com.