All across America, newspapers are faltering, cutting corners, cutting circulation. But healthy journalism is important to our public life. What to do?

One Connecticut lawmaker sees a way to help. In these days of bailout after bailout (steel is getting into the act now), why shouldn’t we help newspapers? According to Reuters:

Connecticut lawmaker Frank Nicastro sees saving the local newspaper as his duty. . . Nicastro represents Connecticut’s 79th assembly district, which includes Bristol, a city of about 61,000 people outside Hartford, the state capital. Its paper, The Bristol Press, may fold within days, along with The Herald in nearby New Britain. That is because publisher Journal Register, in danger of being crushed under hundreds of millions of dollars of debt, says it cannot afford to keep them open anymore. Nicastro and fellow legislators want the papers to survive, and petitioned the state government to do something about it. “The media is a vitally important part of America,” he said, particularly local papers that cover news ignored by big papers and television and radio stations.

Media vital? Yes. Newspapers vital? Less sure.

There are other forms of journalism.

Regardless, I would think this ought to set off alarm bells . . . if only from the papers themselves. Isn’t there supposed to be some sort of firewall between journalism and government?