John Nichols: "The Internet won't save democracy".

Link to John Nichols' January 27 Capital Times column.

Excerpt: As resources for journalism decline, there will still be news, but it will increasingly be lightly edited or even unedited material, much of which will be highly sophisticated, generated by governments, businesses and other self-interested parties. Our research indicates that the ratio of public relations officials to journalists has gone from just over 1 to 1 in 1980 to nearly 4 to 1 today. Unless we change course we are about to enter* a golden age … for propaganda and spin. A coherent understanding about social affairs will be impossible to establish. It will be a dream world for charlatans, demagogues and conspiracy theorists. And it will be entirely incompatible with our Constitution, our freedoms and our democratic aspirations.

*About to enter? I'd say we crossed that threshold quite awhile ago, John. Which is why it's more important than ever to have librarians to assist, advise, and instruct people in accessing all forms of recorded information.