"Fit To Print" examines the ongoing crisis within the U.S. newspaper industry and its impact on local investigative reporting. The film includes interviews from reporters, staff members and media experts within several major U.S. newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Through interviews with former executives at the leading newspaper companies, the filmmakers illustrate a change in business practices, beginning in the 1960s. Newspapers became less a public service than a business enterprise designed to please stockholders. Unfortunately, newspaper companies historically neglected investment in new technologies and expanded classified advertising online despite direct proposals from major internet search engine companies and advertising entrepreneurs As a result, staffs were cut, and the watchdog role of reporters has come with a cost.

"Independent journalism is absolutely essential for a functioning democracy," a laid-off journalist warns us. Indeed.

[Via]