Adrian Pratt of the Centre Daily Times is fighting back for newspapers. Current doomsday predictions are questioning whether the printed press can survive when the Internet apparently has all the answers. Yes, answers Pratt, who doesn't see why the issue is an either/or question.

It is not just the morbid predictions that Pratt has a problem with; neither does he agree with the implication that nobody needs newspapers anymore. If newspapers were to die, Pratt believes that we would lose all objectivity - on the Internet, he says 'it seems that reality can be created and spun'. 'Hysterical' predictions about print's imminent demise to him signal the exact reason that we need it to stay, to present facts as facts and for the 'check and balance that news organisations strive to provide'.

The California Majority Report's Steven Maviglio has a similar criticism, he finds fault with the Comments pages of the Sacramento Bee, which he sees as 'a trash can for hate speech and vulgarity'. The Bee's relaxed attitude to monitoring its comments has apparently lead 'to endless strings of mind-numbing commentary instead of more thoughtful discussion'.

There is something to be said for the argument that the world needs newspapers to keep its focus. On the Internet, there are writers and bloggers who would argue that grass is blue and the sky is green, or claim to have survived a tsunami after a smattering of light rain - just for the sake of it. Equally, there are those who provide objective and informative reports. At least with regulation as a pre-requisite in newspapers, an element of truth and rationality can be guaranteed.

Sources: Centre Daily Times, The California Majority Report