Annette John-Hall: Threat to newspapers is a trend to lament

We've got this thing we do in the newspaper business called advance obits. When public figures get old or sick, we start working on their obituaries - just in case.

Well, it looks like the advance obit for newspapers is being written. Look around: Seattle, Denver, San Francisco. Even here in Philadelphia, where our newspaper company is in bankruptcy, our own futures are uncertain as we dutifully report on ourselves and other struggling industries.

Our beloved craft is dying a slow death, and it's taking thousands of talented journalists with it.

But if you think you're about to read another hand-wringing lament of "How did we not see this coming?" - think again.

Because I'm not going out like that.

Look, I'm no business major or tech wiz. And it's going to take both to figure out how to take a profitable journalism model into the digital age.

What I am is a journalist. And I'm angry. And you should be, too.

You have to wonder why certain professionals are considered valuable enough to get million-dollar bonuses, even for screwing up, while others get forced furloughs for their hard work.

Especially the ones committed to protecting the public trust. That's what public-service-journalism newspapers provide.

We know we can't live without doctors and nurses. Teachers. Police officers and firefighters.

But we seem to think we can live without information about our government, our businesses, our neighborhoods. We'll pay $4 for a cup of coffee, but 75 cents for a paper? That's change we can't spare.

If newspapers disappear, there is no local watchdog to relentlessly hammer home the fact that Roosevelt Boulevard is a pedestrian death trap, as the Philadelphia Daily News did, or boldly go after the Department of Human Services and possibly save hundreds of children from abuse, as The Inquirer did.

You think former State Sen. Vince Fumo, one of the our most powerful rainmakers, went down on 137 counts of corruption and fraud on a federal whim?

No, it all gained momentum because of Inquirer investigative reporter Craig McCoy's hunch.

Truth is, newspapers and their online operations get the information cycle started. TV and radio follow our lead. The Internet, which is blamed or credited for making us irrelevant, gets its best news from us, too.

But you wouldn't know it, because we don't talk about ourselves. It's the way we've been conditioned.

We're taught to be accurate, thorough, and fair.

To tell the story, not become part of it.

With the avalanche of doom upon us, it's time to stop being unimpassioned observers. We can write story after story about the need for libraries, but sit idly by as our own story unravels.

We fight all right - for everyone but ourselves.

I know we're stepping into a whole new era of how information is presented and consumed. I spoke recently to a journalism class at San Francisco State University, my alma mater.

The students, smart and engaging, were eager to share their information tools - Digg and the all-important RSS feeds.

Of course they read news, they said. Even in their all-digital universe, their readers get backlogged from RSS feeds just like newspapers piling up on a kitchen table.

So plugged-in, so worldly, so specialized - and so uninformed.

As one student said, they can check on the Pyramids on Google Earth but can't tell you what's happening in their own backyard.

Afterward, I got an e-mail from Tiffany Claar, one of the 100 or so students in the class.

"I think that it is hard to remember the importance of our local happenings now that we have the ability to function on such a global level," Claar wrote. People "can't see up close anymore, at least until their car is swallowed by a sinkhole, or their neighbor is shot, or they're shot."

Or the local paper disappears.