"Newspapers are the principal pillar of civic journalism"

Ian E. Wilson, the recently retired Librarian and Archivist of Canada, tells Randy Boswell of Canwest News Service that there is

something more in reading a newspaper -- with the stories juxtaposed piece by piece on a page. It's not just the headline, it's the ad, it's the comic strip, it's the news, it's the analysis, it's the coming events. It's the totality of that -- seeing the whole community.

Mr. Wilson has an opinion about blogs vis-à-vis civic journalism.

"Good journalism is essential, fundamental to any society, and we can't expect it's going to happen through blogs," [Mr. Wilson] says.

Wilson sees newspapers as the principal pillar of civic journalism, the wellspring of news and influence and opinion-shaping for all other information purveyors. "The kind of investigative, background material" found in newspapers, says Wilson, along with agenda-setting, enterprise reporting and "analysis and interpretation providing context to today's news is, I think, a role that absolutely must continue."

More here.

Picture courtesy of Jean Levac

Also see: Civic journalism as CCJIG defines it