The exchange comes to mind because of the announcement by the New York Sun that unless new investors can be found by the end of September, the newspaper would close down. The Sun was founded in 2001 by a very rich group of angel investors. It has lost about $70 million, according to various reports, and has a paid circulation in the high teens. Many copies are delivered gratis to the right addresses and potential advertisers. Nonetheless, the Sun’s editor, Seth Lipsky, and his staff have created a creditable enterprise, with a neo-con editorial policy reflecting the politics of the investors attached to solid municipal coverage, excellent arts reporting, and a handsome feel that is old-fashioned in an elegant way, especially at a time when everyone else is trying to be jazzy.

On the day after the Sun’s announcement, the paper ran a lengthy piece under the headline, “A Surge of Support for the Sun Voiced by Leaders in the City.” Quotes of endorsement came from a panoply of big-shots. “I hope they find funding to continue,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg (who could buy the place with his loose change): “The more voices we have the better the public is informed and the better the democracy.” Among the others with expressions of support were: Edward Cardinal Egan, the leader of the Archdiocese of New York; Glenn Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art; Paul LeClerc, president of the New York Public Library; Dr. Herbert Pardes, president and chief executive of New York-Presbyterian Hospital; Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers; and so on.

The paper’s complimentary coverage of itself was understandable. Its back is to the wall and there is no doubt that the city benefits from its perspective, along with those of the New York Times, the Daily News, the New York Post, and, a little further afield, Newsday and the Newark Star-Ledger. This metro area is still, relatively, well serviced, even with the cuts being made at all these newspapers.

And so, to the grim insight courtesy of my acquaintance from Chicago: As newspapers across the country cut their staffs by the thousands, reducing the news holes and downgrading coverage of such core beats as state government, environment, legal affairs, and transportation, where are the civic leaders who should be declaring their dismay? Their silence is deafening. It is an undeniable fact that in most cities, especially those where there is one dominant newspaper, local leaders have a complex love (rarely)/hate (often) attitude toward the dailies. Take the situations I know best: New York and Washington. Say a good word about the New York Times or the Washington Post to almost anyone in the power structure of politics, business, and culture and they will vent at length about their unfair treatment or failings at the paper of one kind or another. In fact, it was said to be perceived bias at the New York Times in its coverage of Israel that was instrumental in the financial support the Sun has received from its backers.

A lifetime of irritations was undoubtedly a major reason why the fellow expressing disdain for the Chicago Tribune seemed so unconcerned that the nation’s second largest city was in the process of having one of its most important institutions downgraded by a new owner who  used mainly the employees’ pension money to buy the place. Whatever its ambitions to make more money, the resulting enterprise will be too depleted, too much smaller, and too devoted to pleasing its dwindling readership to do the kind of focused, sustained coverage of news on which these communities rely far more than anyone seems to recognize. So my response to the Chicago tycoon and his counterparts in Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and elsewhere is: You don’t know what you are losing.

Tough, experienced, and yes, often aggravating and embarrassing coverage of the powers that be and the institutions they run—ostensibly in most cases, to serve the public—are essential to the balance of forces in our system. Great cities with weakened newspapers are much endangered. Let’s hope there are people who step up to support the Sun. But let’s also hope that civic leaders across the country start to recognize what is happening at many of our noblest and, in almost every case, still profitable newspapers and what that means to society. If capitalism (or the largesse of the very rich, as in the case of the New York Sun) is not the way to support quality journalism, then our system has to devise another formula, as we have done with some success for public radio and television. There is no perfect scenario, but just letting papers implode is the most dangerous option of all to anyone who cares about what makes newspapers so vexing to some and yet so important to all.

Peter Osnos is Senior Fellow for Media at The Century Foundation. Sign-up to receive Osnos' columns weekly by email here. Read past columns here.