I bicycled downtown this afternoon to drop off my annual dues to the Missouri Press Association, then the Mizzou Alumni Association where I picked up a copy of the Columbia Missourian. What a treat. For two years as a journalism student I was an indentured servant to that daily grind. Holding that newspaper was a homecoming. The paper’s unmistakable scent took me back to my childhood where every afternoon I would pass the Rolla Daily News as the presses rumbled loud as a freight train and pumped out the strong smell of printer’s ink. Today’s feel of ink on my fingers took me back to my days scouring mountains of newspapers as press secretary for a young state treasurer named Mel Carnahan. Over the years too many great newspaper names have vanished—the Globe-Democrat, the Kansas City Times. Others are threatened by our society’s need for instant gratification without the fact checking. Fact checking takes time, and it’s expensive. But it is as necessary to knowledge as motor oil is to an engine.