What is right about the newspaper business?

Nobody gets worse press than the press. We can be our own worst enemy. So self-absorbed in our woe-is-me mood.

I want to scream every time I read a newspaper article bemoaning the latest decline in newspaper circulation figures and blaming it on the Internet. There is no proof positive that people are abandoning newspapers and getting their news from the Internet. Yes, you can get news there, but most of it is from established news media — newspapers, broadcast and cable networks.

Over the years when people asked me who my newspaper’s competition is I’ve answered quickly and affirmatively: Anything a person can do that keeps them from spending time reading the paper.

That can be jogging, playing with the dog, reading a book, scanning the Internet, cooking breakfast or weeding the garden.

So, I was pleased to read recently about a newspaper advertising campaign and a Web site, yes, that demon that is supposed to be eating our lunch, devoted to some things positive about the newspaper business.

"We are not trying to be Pollyannaish about the newspaper industry, but all the predictions of our demise are just dead wrong," says Randy Siegel, publisher of Parade Publications, the magazine carried in 470 Sunday newspapers, including the Review-Journal.

At the blog NewspaperProject.org, one learns newspaper Web site traffic was up 12 percent in 2008 over the previous year.

You can also read an article by Siegel and Donna Barrett, head of Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. that says:

“In the past year, newspaper journalists have blown away their competition with critically important and defining coverage of two wars, a historic presidential election and the worst economic meltdown and financial scandals in our lifetimes. In municipalities from coast to coast, newspapers have excelled in their watchdog role as a protector of the public interest by bringing down corrupt politicians, exposing government waste and fraud, and injecting much-needed accountability in our schools and social-service agencies.

‘In short, quality content is still king, and newspapers own the best news-gathering operations in their individual markets. Nearly all local news originates from newspaper journalists, which remains a huge competitive advantage if utilized the right way.”

The comments appended to a number of the postings can be brutal, many banging the same old drum about all newspapers being liberal bastions that deserve to go out of business.

The interplay of positive postings and negative reactions reminds me of the old saw about the railroads, where the executives thought they were in the railroad business instead of the transportation business.

We are in the news business.