Our Primary Goal Was Reached

When this petition was launched, the goal was to get people outside of journalism to realize that the many closures of newspapers in the past couple years was more than a tragic tale of unemployment, but moreover a serious threat to American Democracy, the loss of watchdogs at the international, national, state and local levels.

As stated several times during the course of the six-month campaign, this was not about saving jobs, or maintaining "paper" newspapers.

We wanted to encourage people to think about what it would mean to lose newspapers — the largest employers of professionally trained and ethically bound journalists.

We achieved that.

The effort was covered by blogs, publications and radio programs around the world. At last count, more than 60 different news organizations had written about the Know Newspapers Petition.

Of course, some will point to the signatures — fewer than 500 of them. It is a rather low number, but, as stated early on, not a surprise. Journalists by their very nature avoid signing petitions of any kind, even those that express dire concerns they personally share.

The problem hasn't gone away, and I for one will continue to try to raise awareness. But this particular effort has expired. The deadline was July 4, 2009.

This site went dark during that period, but it has since been restored for anyone seeking to reference the materials gathered here.

Thank you for your support.

-- TJ Sullivan