Social media yesterday was full of outrage at the Washington Post, which laid off large numbers of people and terminated the book and sports sections. Almost all of the posts I saw were from current or former journalists, many with ties to the Post; almost none were from readers. Which made me wonder: Are journalists the only Americans who care about journalism? Has the public distrust of journalists gotten so bad, or has the profession become so irrelevant in most people’s lives, that the gutting of a great American newspaper makes little difference to the general public? There’s also the possibility that over the last year we’ve all just become inured to the wanton destruction of vital, once-cherished institutions.
