“Newspapers are dying. Fast.” This is what an older and more accomplished writer said to me when I inquired about jobs at his publication.

During the last couple of years, and especially since the print edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer closed, the death knell of newspapers has been sounding. It grows louder by the month as more traditional media outlets shut their doors.

For students getting degrees in journalism or writing, the job market is drier than a Baghdad stormdrain. Competitive talent is everywhere, and writing gigs are scarce. In recent years, a journalism student might have written for their high-school and college papers, eventually working up to the big leagues of TV, radio and newspapers. But as the big leagues falter, the farm teams are left on their own. As the large papers crumble, the smaller ones that fed them aspiring writers might follow suit. So what happens to journalistic hopefuls?

The newswriter’s training ground can’t remain static for long; with careers and opportunities in traditional journalism dwindling, the desire to learn proper and faithful reporting might fade. But because most consumers of news still want reliable reporting, they are finding it in different places than they have before. Twitter and blogs are both viable sources of news about people and events, provided the sources are reliable. Much of the news we read in larger outlets is from syndicated news companies like The Associated Press.

What’s to happen with smaller newspapers, like the one you’re holding in your hands right now? College newspapers have always been around to report on issues affecting their communities and have always been rooted in the zeitgeist of their campuses. Some form of reporting has to take place at the local level at all times. Could the same thing that happened to the P-I happen to The Daily? Sometimes I walk past hundreds of copies of The Daily just sitting unread, while shelves for The Daily in front of the HUB and Mary Gates are often empty. Many students don’t even read The Daily.

Instead of bemoaning the death of truthful and accountable reporting, we should see the changes taking place. Reporting is always going on, and the news-hungry citizen needs to find it. We ought to realize that newspapers aren’t going to be around forever, at least the way we’ve known them. There will be changes, both quiet and earth-shattering. Reporters are going to be more accountable to their readers than they ever have been because the cigar-toting and scowling editor is a thing of the past. For The Daily, which has little news competition on campus, changes will come slower.

The Daily needs to stay afloat because, for many campus issues, it’s the only objective source. It provides students with a respectable voice and a means of having their ideas heard in print in the form of response letters and, most recently, in online comments.

Knowing what’s happening in your community, nation and world is a prerequisite for responsible living. Not only should we support local news reporting, we should ensure that the people writing the news are trustworthy and thorough, even on our campus.

Reach columnist Jackson Rohrbaugh at opinion@dailyuw.com.