Yes, by the late '70s big city afternoon dailies were in trouble. In Cleveland The News had already folded and the early '80s saw The Press go under.

Boston, if I recall correctly, had 9 dailies. Now...

Agreed. For me, the great hope is of developing a flexible computer screen. If you can buy an IPad that can be folded up like a very thick, sturdy newspaper and the news can be sent to it, you have the best of both worlds.

I see you edited this post once. I'm looking forward to the forthcoming re-writes and edits.

Well print media will always be around as long as people like this read them all.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xRkWebP2Q0Y

One of the problems of the Internet is that people think everything should be free. I don't know how many times I've seen people comment on Facebook posts from The Post that they hate the survey question they have to answer to read the stories. All it costs them is 15 seconds of their time and they think that is too much.

I've been in the yearbook business for 32 years and far prefer print media to digital. There's something complete about sitting at the table or in a chair near the fireplace and devouring the whole paper. When looking at a spread, you get a grasp of the whole culture - ads and all. On a screen, and with more and more people reading on hand held devices, you get the story you're reading and that's all. It's like looking at Mona Lisa's nose but not her entire face. I'll often read an article and then want to find it later to show to my wife or clip to show to a friend. The vast majority of the time I remember it's location by section and where it fell on the page/spread.

Going forward, it's all about economics. I will say that $2.00 for USA Today is a waste of time though. It's like reading American Idol or one of those worthless reality TV shows.

Or, as Archie Bunker would suggest if he was still with us, it wouldn't be the same taking a tablet to the toilet to read the lastest news.

When I'm teaching at yearbook workshops, I often pull this newspaper clipping out of my binder and read it to the students and advisers. It's a great story and example of capturing the essence of an individual. Enjoy the read - even if it is a digital link:

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/obituaries/joseph-berg...

Great stuff on here abt newspapers. I agree that we are losing something with the demise of the print media.

As a self-described newspaper junkie, I confess to reading about a dozen comic strips. I used to feel a bit guilty about revealing that. Then years ago I read this from Supreme Court Chief Justice William Douglas. He said he started with the comics to get a smile or two to begin the day. Then he read the sports section because, although games include losers, it's the section where you can read about winners. Only after comics and sports did he read the news sections. Me? That's my way too, except that I save for last Editorial and Op-Ed pages.

P.S. William Douglas was an associate justice; he was never chief that I can remember, unless he was acting chief briefly at some point due to a vacancy.

A big potential problem going forward is that The Post has become crappier and crappier over the past several years to the point of near-irrelevancy. This doesn't portend well for a publication making a big transition that holds a lot of uncertainty.

I know they're amateurs - nobody expects perfection from a student newspaper. But it's tough to watch what was for a long time a legitimate point of pride descend into being, in large measure, a semi-literate, directionless mess of politically correct scolding done in the absence of fact-checking or much grasp of how the world actually works.

Way too many examples to list (fresh ones are printed five days a week), but here are a few quickies:

-The Post reported that after OU tears down the old science building on President Street this Spring, it will have a new building for the business school completed on the site by August 2016. Actually, it's slated to become green space until COB raises funds. The Post's timetable doesn't pass the smell test, much less rudimentary fact-checking.

-Some sports guy reported for them that OU's basketball victory over UConn in 1994 was one of the biggest wins in the Convo's history. The game was played in Hawaii.

-Absurd emphasis on LGBT issues. Unquestioning, daily regurgitation of radical activists' beliefs. References to "vandalizing of the Black Lives Matter graffiti wall." Exactly when was it re-christened?

Clearly, oh-so-clearly for those really paying attention, it's time for aspiring journalists to put down the social media and texting, boycott Netflix and read more books and do more face-to-face interviews outside their comfort zones. Unfortunately, the digital shift they're embarking on is likely to exacerbate the problems I've outlined.

Don't expect much help from Scripps when Director Stewart flies a drone in his J-school class as some sort of pedagogical gimmick.