I’ve written here so often about the miserable state of newspapers that I should give the topic its own category. My love of newspapers goes back to the family breakfast table when I was a kid and debates over the news (or, more correctly, my father latest outraged outburst). Later, my first job was with a newspaper (in classifieds, when I was a teenager), and still later I became a reporter and then editor (and later freelancer) at several different papers.

Even with that personal history, though, I still plan to cancel my LA Times subscription. I’ve been planning that for six months now and will soon do it. You’ll see.

We’ve all heard that the internet is killing newspapers. But the way in which it’s been talked about is remarkably similar to the way in which a previous media war was waged:  the one between newspapers and the then-emergent print killer called radio. As a new book points out, what’s interesting is that in both cases, the newspaper people viewed it as a moral war to protect the people.

They didn’t win that first war, and they aren’t winning this new one.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 3rd, 2009 at 5:35 pm and is filed under On reading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.