Nobody's asking for my opinion, but if they did I'd say that I don't think it's possible for journalism to die. There's too many readers out there interested in what's happening in the world. Humans are hardwired to tell stories. Sharing stories is a way of sharing information, bridging gaps, and building community. Reporters are like the red-headed good witches of the world (see art by Paranoid Girl, KP)
Yet with that said, the Reader is getting skinnier, as is the Trib. Even the Sunday New York Times isn't as thick as it used to be. A classmate in my comedy writing class was recently laid off from a film critic job at a popular magazine, and among newspapers the layoffs keep mounting, and in some cases like the Chicago Journal, entire editions like the one covering my neighborhood have folded.
For newspaper fans like myself, perhaps not in the same age demographic Maureen Dowd speaks of in the linked column, below, this means I am spending less time pouring over the newspapers, because there's less to read.
Maybe it's paying for journalism that's the problem. Advertisers are tapped out, too, like everyone else. Isn't there another way to pay for it? Foundations, private investors, community groups, businesses? That cliche of "no news is good news" doesn't apply to the (actual) news.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/opinion/26dowd.html
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