Twenty-six years ago, the Watergate burglary and subsequent resignation of Richard Nixon gave Americans a vivid and sobering look at what it means to have the press work as a watchdog for government and politics in this country. Since then, journalists have taken that often-justified skepticism into all areas of civic life. At the same time, their employers — organizations this report refers to as traditional media — were acquiring new holdings or being acquired by even larger, often non-journalistic, businesses. Profit became king in national media. Locally, King Broadcasting, once a national model of broadcast community responsibility, followed the pattern set by other local media and was acquired by a national company. In the name of profit, media contributed less to civic life. In the name of prosperity, or frustration, citizens of the Puget Sound area demanded less. Our region is, in fact, a microcosm of the changes taking place in civic life and media across the country. If we understand what we have to gain or lose by those changes, perhaps we will use our civic voices to affect them.