I admit, I am proud to be a newspaperman. I actually love the form, ink on newsprint.

But in these gloomy times for the industry, positive pronouncements from its most ardent supporters sometimes make me feel like slinking away, pretending I don't share their particular passion.

This week, a group of newspaper executives, Newspaperproject.org, distributed an ad for the day after the Super Bowl claiming, "More people will read a newspaper today than watched yesterday's big game."

Look, I understand that the naysayers about newspapers have to be countered. As difficult as things are, and not just here in Denver, we still have a good story to tell.

Newspapers tend to cover themselves and the plight of their industry in a way that TV and radio news don't. That has its drawbacks. The public thinks we're the only ones struggling. That's not true. TV newscasts are seeing their audiences shrink. They just don't make a big deal out of it.

But I'm not on board with the latest marketing pitch. There's a huge difference between 97.5 million people watching a single event at the same time on the same channel and a similar amount of people looking at one of the nation's roughly 1,400 daily newspapers over a 24-hour period. (By the way, Nielsen says 151.6 million people watched at least six minutes of the game. About 105 million people read a daily newspaper on a typical day.)

Chest pounding has its place. (You don't have to tell me that I'm sometimes criticized for doing just that on behalf of the Rocky.) But it only goes so far. Young reporters are taught to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. Does anybody really think sitting glued to your couch for four hours, as riveted to the advertisements as to the game action, is in any way comparable to reading a newspaper or its Web site?

I don't think so. And by pushing that line we threaten to undermine our own credibility even further.

I'm not ornery about the latest attempts to support newspapers because of our own peculiar problems at the Rocky. Being on the auction block isn't fun. You've heard about sailing ships being stuck in the doldrums. That's what it sometimes feels like here. Which is why I so admire the work our staff continues to do.

Our goal remains to live up to our commitment to inform - and to entertain and inspire, too. People judge the value of products by their own experience, and we don't want to do anything that would undermine the bond we've built with many.

I think it would be much better if newspaper proponents would focus on the importance of journalism, however it's created and distributed. We need to build understanding of why journalism is valuable, and what sets it apart from infotainment or advocacy.

I was lucky this week to attend a speech at the University of Denver by Ethan Zuckerman, co-founder of Global Voices Online. The Web site, which publishes and translates blogs from around the world, was this year's recipient of the Anvil of Freedom Award, presented as part of the Edward W. Estlow annual lecture series.

Zuckerman's organization doesn't have a physical newsroom. It's a global operation connected virtually. Its Web site, globalvoicesonline.org, is a "community- produced, citizen news wire."

One of the lessons they've learned, he said, is that "it's easier to speak than to be heard."

Although many of the blogs on his site seem to lack the context and background you might expect from a traditional news story, they offer something different, a homegrown perspective that's rooted in places many of us rarely pay attention to.

At a time when economic pressures are causing many major American newspapers to cut back drastically on original foreign reporting, his talk made me see a possible way for newspapers to open the world to their readers, not just internationally, but also locally.

Many citizens are speaking. Could we help the best ones be heard? So far, newspapers haven't been the ones inventing better ways to share news and information.

We know today that even the finest newspapers are facing serious challenges.

The answer isn't just to make the case that our industry is vital.

It's to find new ways to connect and build understanding between people. Instead of arguing all is well, we should prove through our actions that newspapers have an important role to play.

John Temple can be reached at editor@RockyMountainNews.com or by mail at 101 W. Colfax Ave., Suite 500, Denver, CO 80202.