The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is going web-only.
The Rocky Mountain News is gone all together.
Many more, including some of the oldest , most awarded newspapers in the country, are teetering on the edge of going out of business. It's just too sad, and more than a little disturbing. That said, I do not read the local Rochester newspaper. A little bit of not caring, and not having any real access, but it is also a bad paper.. or at least a bad website. It also went to that smaller size of newspapers that I just can not get used to . Part of newspaper reading is tactile for me. I like the sound and feel of a newspaper, the ritual. But I for the most part , only read online now. So, it is a little bit my fault.
I used to have to drive a long way to get the Sunday New York Times back in pre-net days, and read the Atlanta paper pretty often, epically during football season, and I think my parents get like four newspapers, so I do have the history. Just don't do it now.
One thing that I have not heard anyone talk about is the overall group think of a newspaper. Everyone in a city or community pretty much getting the exact same information, doing with it what they will, wrapping a fish, or agreeing whole heatedly. At least there was some general sense of " us" With the web, you create your own universe. Where does most of what you read, news-wise for free on the internets come from??...
I am sure that radio and tv sounded the death knell of newspapers in the day, and plenty survived, maybe, hopefully this time as well.
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