Late last month, the Society of Professional Journalists called for "an urgent national conversation about how to preserve public-service journalism in light of the likely sale of the Knight Ridder newspaper company."

Journalists involved in covering environmentally-related news should make their voices heard in that national conversation in whatever ways they consider appropriate. What happens to Knight Ridder has crucial implications for the future of environmental journalism, in newspapers and beyond.

It's not just that Knight Ridder's newspapers and news service have produced a wealth of distinguished reporting on environmental issues over the years, often advancing important stories and setting high standards for other journalists.

There are also profound and well-grounded concerns among many current and former journalists that staffing and other economic cutbacks accompanying a sale or breakup of Knight Ridder could trigger an industry-wide round of cuts as investors decide to demand higher and higher profits at other companies.

As earlier waves of downsizing have buffeted the newspaper industry, the scope of environmental reporting has often been diminished because the environment beat was one of the coverage areas commonly targeted when newspaper owners chose to shrink or freeze editorial staffing. For details of one recent period when environmental coverage was squeezed, see an article in the May 2003 Environment Writer.

The hope in the past has been that these were just periodic reductions in attention to environmental subjects that would be mitigated or reversed in the next cyclical improvement of newspapers' fortunes.

The fear this time, with Knight Ridder on the sales block because of pressure from key shareholders, is that we may be witnessing a sea change in the industry that brings a permanent contraction in newspapers' coverage, investigation and interpretation of significant issues of public concern – in short, what SPJ correctly called "public-service journalism."

The environment, broadly defined, is a key issue of public concern, and newspapers have traditionally produced most of the news coverage. A permanent reduction in newspapers' reporting on the environment would have a ripple effect throughout journalism, because many broadcast reporters, bloggers, magazine writers and book authors rely upon that coverage in various ways for basic background information and leads for their own inquiries.

Concerns about the broader ramifications of the Knight Ridder situation were further fueled in January, two days before SPJ issued its plea for "an urgent national conversation," by an article in the Wall Street Journal.

The first sentence: "Job cuts, benefit reductions, and reduced newspaper sizes are part of a plan to improve margins by as much as $150 million a year at newspaper chain Knight Ridder Inc., according to people familiar with presentations management has been making to potential buyers."

Toward the bottom of the story was this chilling paragraph:

"'If you're going to buy the whole company, you probably have to go into it with a plan to tighten it up and get a better margin out of it,' said John Cribb, principal broker at Cribb & Associates LLC, a leading newspaper brokerage firm based in Bozeman, Mont. Mr. Cribb said there is room to do this at Knight Ridder without damaging the product. 'They're certainly not the tightest operators out there.'"

That last statement is undoubtedly correct. Although Knight Ridder has already carried out editorial cutbacks in recent years – cuts deplored by many admirers of the company's legacy of journalistic achievement, including 84 Pulitzer Prizes – some other newspaper chains are still "tighter operators."

But regarding Mr. Cribb's assertion that further cuts are possible at Knight Ridder "without damaging the product," I would simply say this: From my own experience at several newspapers (none in the Knight Ridder chain), I have concluded that whenever economic considerations reduce basic coverage or in-depth investigation of important public issues, the product is always damaged.

The "national conversation" that SPJ wants to stimulate actually got started in November with a public statement that spoke to this very question. In an open letter, a group of more than 50 prominent "Knight Ridder Alumni" announced that they are prepared to nominate candidates to the company board who would "restore" the resources needed to produce "excellent journalism."

In announcing that intention, these current and former journalists said they have "watched mostly in silent dismay as short-term profit demands have diminished long-term capacity of newsrooms in Knight Ridder and other public media companies."

Knight Ridder, they asserted, "is not merely another public company. It is a public trust. It must balance corporate profitability with civic purpose."

Now is the time for environmental journalists who agree to speak out.