According to an article published by the Illinois Information Technology Association (IITA), 550 million Internet searches are done daily worldwide … and only 23% of adults under 30 today read newspapers regularly.

Do you read newspapers? Why or why not?

Will newspapers close their doors within one generation? Or will the Sunday morning ritual of reading the New York Times be around forever?

RH, who has edited a number of my books, recently noted in an e-mail to me, “Everybody needs an editor!”

Copywriters, magazine writers, newspaper reporters, and book authors published by traditional publishing houses all have editors.

But self-published book authors, e-book authors, e-zine writers, and bloggers usually don’t: what they write goes straight from their PC to the reader, without being vetted by a third party.

I’ve often heard blogging enthusiasts derisively refer to “edited content” when speaking of traditional publishing.

But is editing bad? I’ve always thought of editing as “quality control” for the written word. And as a rule, give me good writing over bad any day.

What do you think? Do you prefer having your writing edited? Or left alone?

Would you rather read blogs and other “unedited” writings? Or magazines and other formats where the text you are reading has passed through an editor’s “quality inspection”?