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This interview is part of the Future of Journalism interview series.
Following is an interview by OurBlook with Dr. Douglas Perret Starr, a professor of agricultural journalism at Texas A&M.
 What do you think of the idea being bandied about that governments as a last resort should bail out failing newspapers?
DPS: It's a terrible idea, and it is against the Constitution. The First Amendment in the Bill of Rights states: "Congress shall make no law . abridging the freedom of speech or of the press. ."
In the event governments decide to do it, should they attach conditions as is being done for other bailout loans and grants or should it be a blank check?
DPS: If government bails out newspapers, even with a blank check, government will control not only newspapers, but also every other news outlet - radio, television, World Wide Web, and whatever else the mind of man can invent. Communist and socialist countries have control of the news media as a means of controlling the people. In such situations, the people will know only what government wants them to know.
In the United States, government is involved with schools. The only thing left would be religion, freedom from and of which is guaranteed in the First Amendment, which states: "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. ."
Philanthropic groups also are being mentioned as a possible savior for newspapers. What do you think of that as a possibility?
DPS: Anyone or any group can help the news media survive, can buy into the news media corporation; that's part of our democratic form of government. If the person or the group that bought into the news medium injects its own ideas into news coverage and reporting, subscribers will soon see the folly of that and stop subscribing. The Christian Science Monitor is a good example. It is a religion-based and -owned newspaper, but it covers and reports the news objectively.
Texas doesn't seem to be as hard-hit by the recession as the rest of the country. What is the financial situation with the large metro papers in your state that you follow?
DPS: In Texas, as in all states, newspapers are hard hit economically and are reducing in size: smaller pages, fewer pages, smaller news hole. This situation is not new; it began with the blossoming of television news, particularly the evening news hour, which resulted in the demise of afternoon newspapers.
Then, the Internet broke forth, and advertisers reduced newspaper advertising in favor of the World Wide Web with its greater readership. Newspaper subscribers fell off. Reduction in advertising and in subscribers left newspapers no choice but to reduce page numbers and sizes, thereby reducing the size of the news hole.
Another factor is the falling economy and the loss of many businesses and their advertising.
Compounding all of this is the fact that the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) controls the price that newspapers charge per column inch of advertising. The formula is based, in part, upon the number of subscribers. Thus, fewer subscribers means lower advertising rates and less revenue for the newspaper.
You have 45 years of experience in journalism and teaching it. From your experience and vantage point, is there anything newspapers can do that they're not doing to improve their chances of surviving? (Editor's note: Prof. Starr crossed out the "45" in his reply and typed in "57 years, 1952-2009").
DPS: Attract young readers of news by focusing on their age group. Ask young people what kind of news they want and add that to the mix.
Return to the time-honored requirements of reporting. Use the inverted pyramid approach to writing news, giving readers the whole story in the first one or two sentences, because most readers do not read through any news story. Use simple English and simple sentences and proper punctuation and grammar.
Reduce the length of international and national stories by cutting unnecessary detail that people don't read.
Ensure that reporters report accurately and objectively, without opinion and conjecture, except in analyses and columns.
Ensure that analyses and columns draw conclusions based upon stated fact.
Publish more local news, news of what's going on in the newspaper's geographic jurisdiction.
You have said that every time a paper fails, all of us lose a little bit of freedom and people don't realize that. With the prospect now that many newspapers across America are on the brink of bankruptcy, what do you think the effect will be on our society if they don't make it?
DPS: The United States as we know it will disappear; it will no longer be a nation of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. One by one, all of our freedoms will disappear; the Bill of Rights, of freedoms, will be meaningless because there will be no freedom of speech or of the press. Without a free press, there will be no one to keep an eye on the government and to tell the people what the government is doing and is planning to do.
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I hope to share your title in the near future. I'm teaching an advertising sales class as part of the doctoral program at the University of Florida. My recent research that led me to your interview concerns the future of newspapers. The FCC has discussed the idea of saving the newspapers by changing the joint ownership rules. I think that it is absurd for the Federal Communication Commission to be concerned with saving the newspapers. Maybe they should help us save the radio industry.