There is much complaining about the decline of the mainstream newspapers. And I too am saddened to see that many cities have no decent paper. (The complaint used to be that they had only one.) But it is not as if we don’t have good reporting going on. Even with the death of some newspapers and the downsizing of others, journalism will not be lost.

Take the Washington Times: Many have and still denigrate it. But as I and others have pointed out, it was the Times, and Eli Lake specifically, who ferreted out the facts on the Chas Freeman story while the Washington Post was twiddling its collective thumbs. Which journalistic approach was better in this case?

The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein routinely covers stories that in no way support the bias of his publication, whether on Republican complaints about Obama’s lack of bipartisanship or about card check. And unlike the New York Times’s irritating penchant for blind quotes or passive voice, which blur facts with reporters’ points of view, Stein’s stories are actually sourced. (What a concept!)

So the notion that publications with an honestly stated ideological preference can’t or don’t report is nonsense. They are slowly taking over the field vacated by MSM publications that don’t report and don’t admit their biases. So if the latter go out of business, will we really be the worse for it? I am coming around to the view that we’ll all do just fine.