Jay Kuten: Chronicle truly indispensable

I'M NOT immune to the implicit flattery of someone saying they agree with what I've written.

It is always harder to remain open and not defensive when someone disagrees and makes that disagreement plain.

Harder - but necessary, if what's mutually sought is a modicum of truth.

Months back a reader phoned and asked: "Do you get paid for writing this crap?"

"Yes," I replied, "But not enough."

And that led to a most pleasant meeting over coffee to let the both of us elaborate our differences respectfully. I think we both came away having learned something and, at the very least, acknowledged that we could disagree without becoming disagreeable.

In that same vein, a number of readers of this paper have expressed their disappointment over the decision to eliminate the Monday edition's weekly television guide.

I felt that absence as well until I learned that those cuts were necessary for financial reasons to conserve other functions within the paper's limited budget.

I am in a somewhat unique position of writing for the paper as an independent journalist.

That allows me the latitude to be critical of the paper as I am of much of the media, particularly where it fails to do its essential job of informing the public on the issues that matter. Independence also makes it possible to praise the paper when it is deserved.

I have been sorely disappointed in the performance of major media outlets in the US. There the "newspaper of record", the New York Times, has utterly failed to provide adequate explanations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership or a significant analysis of global warming, except, incidentally, in describing Exxon's hiding its knowledge of fossil fuels' contribution.

And, in the current political season, the Times and other media outlets have succumbed to becoming infotainment, not sources of information.

British papers have been no better. We need only remember the phone hacking scandal to take the measure of the UK's major news outlets.

One of the better papers, the Independent, recently folded its print edition and became entirely digital.

For us in Whanganui, we're lucky to have this newspaper. I have read that we are New Zealand's oldest newspaper, founded in 1856. The paper's original motto was "Truth Without Fear" and, in my experience of the reporting and the editing, we're still living up to our motto.

As many people surely know, print newspapers are an endangered species - like print anything, like books and libraries.

I would like to claim support for books and especially for libraries. Some of my most productive moments at uni were spent in the Divinity School Library of the University of Chicago. It's a quiet place for peace, study and reflection.

But the fact is that I do most of my research now at my computer, which has become a vast data archive for me. Like many of you, I'm part of the demise of print.

Although in our world "indispensable" soon becomes a relative term, the presence of a regional newspaper that provides information pertinent to the local population's daily activities ought to be indispensable.

We do a creditable job of investigative reporting, given our limited resources. At the very least, this newspaper calls attention to issues of importance to Whanganui.

This newspaper regularly includes special sections that provide greater insight into farming, for example, or Maori affairs. That's where a regional newspaper serves a special instructive purpose, one that permits people outside those communities to gain a better understanding of the daily lives of others whom they may not know intimately.

I appreciate the editing of the paper which permits the publication of diverse opinions and fosters the vigorous and robust debate of issues vital to democracy.

Given the challenges of our diverse but small population as a readership base, we are lucky to have this paper and if to some this essay appears a valentine out of season, it's great to be lucky and even better to know when you are.

-Jay Kuten is an American-trained forensic psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand for the fly fishing. He spent 40 years comforting the afflicted and intends to spend the rest afflicting the comfortable.