COMMENTARY: IT'S A BIG DEAL

race or ethnicity.

Contrary to popular belief, there are people from all over the world in this country and not just people from Mexico, as the Arizona law implies.

Another safe conclusion would be that the Hispanic population in the local area’s television viewing and newspaper circulation area would presumably be interested in knowing what is going on their own backyard in regards to the issue.

But the question is; if the local Avalanche Journal and at least two TV stations barely report the local story, with the 2 major TV stations spending less than 3 whole minutes on it, is that serving the public need?

And last time I checked, TV stations are still using public airwaves with one of the responsibilities in return for using them; being to serve the public interest and need.

A newspaper on the other hand could argue they are not using public anything and are a private entity and they would be right and therefore feel no need to serve the public need.

But it is a shared belief among folks who run newspapers, at least it was at The Washington Post; a newspaper where I spent 12 years, that a newspaper should reflect its readership, its market’s diversity, and not be one dimensional and cover only the topics which will only interest their base readership.

Otherwise what happens is that newspapers lose paid circulation, lose advertising dollars, have to cut jobs and layoff employees; are unable to pay their debt like all good private and corporate citizens, and wind up having to depend on a government created bankruptcy law (all the while criticizing big government). And eventually they wind up having to file for Chapter 11 just like ...