If the print product of most papers die and they retreat online (if they can make money that way, of course) and you have to subscribe to the New York Times or Washington Post in order to get a morning paper, that won't be the worst thing in the world in terms of content. It may even be an improvement for a lot of people in terms of national and world news analysis and arts coverage. But the connection to the local community will suffer, I would think.

If the print product of most papers die and they retreat online (if they can make money that way, of course) and you have to subscribe to the New York Times or Washington Post in order to get a morning paper, that won't be the worst thing in the world in terms of content. It may even be an improvement for a lot of people in terms of national and world news analysis and arts coverage. But the connection to the local community will suffer, I would think.

Because newspapers have (or maybe I should say “had”) to not only report a story, they also have to do so in a thorough manner that goes beyond the headline (Just think of the pyramid structure most newspaper stories follow). TV and radio can't do what newspapers do because their news segments are formatted so news is mostly summarized (i.e., just the tip of the pyramid), but not analyzed. Newspaper reporters who are good at their craft do both in the space alloted, but TV and radio reporters, in their breathless rush to be the “first on the scene,” rarely have time to reflect on what it all means in a larger context.

I still get a paper copy of the SF Chronicle — even though, like the L.A. Times, are probably going to go under in a few years. I read a lot of news online, but there's something about having a physical copy to read that creates a different level of concentration. I don't have the same “deep reading” experience reading news online that I have when I'm reading a paper.

But it's probably because I'm old.

In every field, there are spoilers. There's no avoiding them. Castigating the whole of print journalism is as irresponsible as celebrating the entire political blogosphere. The integrity of individual outlets can't be so easily wrapped in ribbons and bows.

Clearly you haven't gotten around to my post where Garfield dies of a heart attack. Arterial disease is not a laughing matter and I'm more of a Bill & Opus man anyhow.

When I hear the doom and gloom over and over again, I do think back to all the articles I read in the '90s (in newspapers, natch) about network TV being on its way out, that there was no way it could keep up with cable. The ratings aren't what they used to be, but the networks are still around and still competing. And when you read that “Quantum of Solace” made $70 million over the weekend, which translates to 9.8 million tickets sold, then read that “CSI's” season premiere was watched by 23.5 million viewers, you see that the networks still have a wide reach.

But I am a dreamer. A cynical dreamer, but still, a dreamer. And information overload can make me queasy.

Even as I find myself snapping up every “commemorative edition” I can find of the newsweeklies, they are simply stacking up with unread copies of newspapers and other magazines as I retreat to the Internet to get more and more of my news of all kinds.

It's ironic that the Nov. 5 papers are becoming such collector's items, because this election season, if anything, accelerated the decline of the newspaper industry. Events moved so rapidly throughout the day that only frequently updated Web newspaper sites seemed sufficient (my site of choice is the Washington Post). Maybe it's because I'm on the West Coast, but by the time I would sit down to read the LA Times over breakfast I always had a nagging suspicion that something had already happened on the campaign trail to render my newspaper moot.

We're experiencing an ugly death spiral here in L.A., anyway, where the L.A. Times is dwindling down to nothing before our eyes. Every few weeks another section disappears–most recently the Thursday 'Weekend” tabloid section simply vanished, after years of slashing pages and content. The Sunday “Comment” section was shrunken last winter, crammed into an 8-page tabloid that it shared with the Book Review section — and then a couple months ago even THAT disappeared. Now there's no Book Review section whatsoever, and editorials and op-eds appear at the back of the front section, just like every other day of the week.

Thank goodness for the Sunday NY Times–though even those have been stacking up this fall.

I don't know what kind of economic model they'll create to keep newspapers alive on the Net; even the Wall Street Journal seems to have figured out that forcing readers to buy subscriptions in order to view online content doesn't work. But the end is coming for the printed broadsheet, if not also the tabloid; it's just a matter of how long they can hang on.

BTW, a friend of mine lost his regular gig when the NY Sun went under. His was a terrific column, too, and NY is poorer without it.