Check out the story on the sale of the Journal Star and six other newspapers in the San Diego Reader's City Lights column: http://www.sdreader.com/ed/city/

Go to other 2007 columns and click on Breaking News: The Mother of all Fire Sales.

The story talks about the backlash against the sale of these papers in the Midwest and uses our campaign in Peoria as an example. But then it goes on to quote a Springfield blogger who's frustrated because there's no movement to influence the sale in Springfield, where Copley is selling the State Journal-Register. The blogger wonders if people in Springfield, the state capital, as less passionate about their newspaper than the people of Peoria. I have no idea, but I doubt it. We simply have the luxury of being a union newspaper, and that means our jobs are protected as we try to tell people what this sale will mean for Peoria unless enough people speak up. Springfield's newsroom is not union, something that probably didn't bother the employees much until now.

The irony here is outsiders may interprete a union as restricting the work of its members by insisting on things like regulated hours and wages. But most of the Peoria Newspaper Guild's members are journalists. Journalists are taught to look for potential harm to the community, reasearch the outcomes of possible actions, and bring those conclusions to light so everyone, readers to community leaders, can make informed decisions.

That's what Save the Journal Star is all about. We're researched the trends in the industry and found them frightening. We know better than anyone that community outcry can change an outcome for the better. And so we're informing the community in the hopes they'll hear the message and decide they don't want to lose the esence of their community newspaper because of one California millionaire's fire sale.

I can't think of anything more frustrating than being a journalist and not being able to tell this truth.