Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> On Jan 22, 2010, at 9:20 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>
> > "By and large, down the decades, the mainstream newspapers have —
> > often rabidly — obstructed and sabotaged efforts to improve our
> > social and political condition." --<http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn01012010.html
> > >
>
> Right. And none of us would know a damn thing without them, Cockburn
> included.
Yes ...but.
Two different sets of readers: the general public and the "we" referred to here. The general public got about the same amount of information (real information) from reading papers then as the general public does now by not reading -- pretty much zilch in both cases.
Papers still exist now, and probably will continue to exist in dwarfed form for some time. And presumably new sources of news-collection will develop (not blogs, etc: I agree with you that they depend on newspaperss as a source). And while TV networks distribute mostly crap, they collect a lot, which in one way or another is available for those (e.g., you and Carl) who dig for it.
Or another way of looking at it. The topic is not newspapers but collection, distribution, and storage of information. Newspapers were primary for a couple centuries, but their (partial) disappearance does not mean that information collection, distribution and storage will disappear.
More narrowly, the subject of the 'enlightenment' of the general public: Not reading papers is not worse and may be better than readiing them. That is a question to explore.
Re Coxburn. The worst Studs Terkel program I ever heard was his interview with Cockburn: Half the program was nostalgia for the days of the typewriter. He's probably as attached to newspapers as you are.
Carrol