In praise of print

Let’s hear it for print journalism. On Feb. 10, I went to Augusta to testify along with 20 or 30 others at the Educational and Cultural Affairs hearing on the fingerprinting issue. Everybody got three minutes — legislators getting first crack, then those in favor of fingerprinting, then those opposed. The media were there in force, but once the politicians were done, the television people packed up and left. When I got home, I watched for the coverage on two of Bangor’s TV stations. What both stations gave us was exactly the same 10-second clip of one legislator uttering the word “pedophile.”

Print journalists, most prominently those from the Bangor Daily News and the Maine Times, not only stayed to the end, but they buttonholed testifiers after they had spoken, requested copies of their remarks, and even came back later with follow-up questions.

Naturally, I thought the report published on your front page was biased against the side I supported, but that’s probably proof that the reporter was trying to be fair. The bottom line is that print journalism gave its readers a front-page article on a complicated and important issue. Electronic journalism gave viewers somebody saying the word “pedophile.” I shall remember this the next time I hear somebody say newspapers are obsolete. Paul Gray Castine