Newspaper circulation and their incumbent advertising revenue have been in serious decline over the last two decades, yet news reporting and news itself is of importance to significant and meaningful numbers of Americans. When it comes to news being reported on television, there are only a limited number of topics that they will cover, and for television religion and religious topics aren’t typically on that list, except for certain religious days of the year, but even then the spin from your local television station usually has a heavy secular emphasis. This isn’t too surprising because TV tries not to be too much of one thing or of another, TV definitely has no desire or intention to be controversial, its main goal is to produce revenue and while newspapers have the same strong desire to produce revenues, they have the added flexibility of the capability of being all things to all people.
The reason that newspapers are far more flexible in regards to media content as compared to TV, is that with TV, the television producers and editors are in complete control as to what you do or don't see, whereas with a newspaper, whether it is digital or print, the reader is the sovereign, and he can decide what articles to pursue or not to read. Therefore, this means that newspapers have far greater capabilities to provide the entire gamut of the news spectrum, a choice that they should willingly embrace. Additionally, and very importantly, local newspapers have an absolute obligation to propagate good citizens, as each generation has a responsibility to the next.
Within a newspaper there is plenty of opportunity to provide stories that appeal to all sorts of interests but at the end of the day, it is a community service to also build a solid foundation expounding what the duties and responsibilities of citizens are within a community. The best way to present this to readers is via a specific religious section and while it might appear that such a section is merely preaching to the choir, on any given day at any given time, people without hope, down in spirit, will end up turning to these very pages to recognize who they really are inside. That is why it is so critically important that newspapers provide a religious section to their provided content. We, as a people, are still free to choose, but having that very choice can make all the difference.
Nevertheless, it appears that religion in newspapers is being marginalized into near non-existence at so many newspapers. This is a grave mistake and a great disservice to the public at large, because the heritage of the United States is as a God-fearing nation, which historically has recognized that our life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and our equal creation came from the very Hand of God. That above statement is absolutely true, yet today too many of us are ignorant of God, of religion, or of loving our neighbor, so that our country and ourselves suffer for it.
The New York Times motto is "All the News that's fit to Print", but that doesn't appear to really be the case, nor is it the case for so many newspapers. You remember the old adage, that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink it, all I am saying is that newspapers have an obligation to at least provide you with that water and by doing so they will do their community and readership much good.