Journalist: Shut down U.S. news sites to show value

Posted by Emily Dilling on February 23, 2009 at 12:27 PM

In an effort to demonstrate the importance of online news sources and news gatherers, journalist TJ Sullivan has created a petition that proposes a week-long shutdown of the Web sites maintained by American newspapers as well as the Associated Press, Journalism.co.uk reported.

The shut down, scheduled for July 2009, is intended to "raise awareness of the crisis facing American newspapers."

In an interview with Journalism.co.uk, Sullivan argued that "most American newspapers are located in small-to-medium sized markets where they fulfil vital roles in their communities, the most important of which is covering local government," echoing the petition's statement that "daily newspapers aren't simply businesses, but an integral part of American democracy."

Sullivan's goal in unplugging the news sources' Web sites is to call attention to the importance of professional journalists who are facing financial hardships, characterised by buyouts and layoffs which "continue to decimate the staffs of publications that fulfil vital watchdog roles."

Though Sullivan admits that the petition is a "hard sell" for journalists, whose code of ethics binds them to objectivity, he hopes that the document will attract attention to the process of news gathering and emission as well as the plight of professionals working in the field, according to Journalism.co.uk.