Editorial writers can have a solipsistic tendency to think journalism jobs are the most essential jobs imaginable. We can revere the philosophical argument about the importance of a free press in keeping democracy viable without thinking every lost job at a media outlet is the decline and fall of America.

The Washington Post just cut 300 jobs -- not from national politics but from foreign bureaus, and book reviews and sports. That means the Post no longer boasts the full menu of newspaper offerings. Journalists don't beat their breasts like this when coal miners or auto workers are laid off.

On Feb. 5, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan broke out in a crying jag of an editorial, sounding less like a conservative and more like a ranting lefty like Ellen Goodman or Mary McGrory in the Reagan-era Post.

"Reaction shouldn't break down along ideological lines," she protested, "in which the left feels journalism is its precinct and is sad, and the........

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