So who cares if the NY Times and the other outlets go bust. If I wanted bullshit propoganda I’ll tune into Bush’s next press conference. The sooner the world is rid of phony journalists the better and it seems the traditional outlets are funding these fools.

Like the auto industry, newspapers in America have choking on their own largesse, like fat man with clogged arteries and diabetes that suddenly realized he can no longer walk the 100ft from his front door to his car.

The nineties saw unprecedented mergers and consolidations. The conglomerates lobbied the SEC, FCC, and Congress for the approval to makes themselves even more fat and bloated. But like dinosaurs, the bigger these companies became, the harder it was for them to adapt to a changing environment.

At the turn of the century, when the internet first took off, they stuck their heads in the sand. Many were slow to adopt a significant online presence. Many of those that did go online early, tried to charge their online readers subscription fees. Traditional newspaper subscription fees and newstand prices are meant to cover the cost of distribution at the lowest common denominator that returns the highest possible circulation. The web offered newspapers the chance to increase their circulation with a relative zero increase on the cost of distribution and thus to increase their advertising revenue.

When craigslist and the realty websites started cutting into their classified revenue, they didn’t adjust their prices and services to compete. The disparity is amazing. If you want to list a home for sale or a job opportunity in a mid sized local paper, it will cost in the neighborhood of $500. That versus free. They didn’t get it. They buried their heads and just waited for the comet to impact.

It’s not surprising that the independently owned, 1 owner-1 paper, outlets (what few there are) are managing survival better than the Media Generals and Gannets.

Full-time professional investigative journalism is one of the few industries that I will mourn among the many killed by the internet.

The classified ads were the moneymakers.