Musings from the Beltway: Newspapers' demise and an informed electorate

This will be the first of several blogs from my recent trip to the East Coast and the Beltway.

I guess that chronologically is usually the way to go with such endeavors, but my mind works differently.

Instead, I will dispense with the event that, even 1,800 miles removed, affected me personally the most: the massive layoffs at The Salt Lake Tribune.

It is where I do my day job; it has been for the past 15 years since I escaped, finally, an unstable and often malevolent boss at the national news service where I had worked for 18 years, three months, 12 days and 5.5 hours.

I learned about the layoffs, my good fortune and the misery of the unlucky, in a telephone call from my editor.

The newspaper industry's woes are well known, and they have not skipped the Trib. In the past two years we have lost half our staff, and cuts that came, unexpected and deep, at my vacation's mid-point were devastating.

So, I kept my job; 20 percent of the remaining staff did not. What the future holds only God knows. I may work at the Trib until I retire in 5-10 years or so, or I may find myself joining my now-unemployed colleagues when the next unexpected cuts come.

End of the year budget reviews come to mind, though -- as we have been told with lessening conviction by management in the past 3-4 layoffs -- this latest, most painful cutback is hoped to be the last.

I put my trust in God . . . and continue to beat the bushes for freelance work with an eye to the time when I may have to depend on such opportunities to pay the mortgage.

So, there's my personal reaction. My professional reaction is far deeper: I fear for our already tattered republic is professional, balanced and investigative journalism disappears, along with newspapers.

Not that newspapers have done well, in my opinion, in living up to their supposed commitment to fairness and balance in reporting. They have not done so.

Still, they provide the best foundation for those informational elements that keep the electorate informed.

Founding Father Thomas Jefferson was abused horribly by the press, but still held that a free, unfettered journalism was essential to our nation's political health:

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be," he said.

As I visited the monuments and memorials spread along the National Mall in Washington, D.C., recently -- including one honoring Jefferson -- I mourned for my departed colleagues and wondered how the electorate will be adequately informed in the future as they make choices that affect us all.