Netminder - 5:01 pm on Dec 15, 2004 (gmt 0)

"Local newspapers are DOA but don't know it yet. City papers will last a bit longer, but they'll evolve. Holding onto a newspaper will be a comfort, a habit thing for an aging demographic."

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is, simply put, nonsense.

If the local weekly is the ONLY source of information about the county, whether they have a website or not is immaterial. There's a daily that has a four page section covering three other counties besides this one, that has ONE reporter for two of those counties, so expecting any substantial information about this county from it has to be a joke -- and if they don't have the information in their print edition, they're certainly not going to put it on their website. Recent case in point: it took four days to find out who won a local playoff game.

The ONLY time the "local" television stations (all located 1.5 hours from here) ever come to the county is either a) a grizzly murder/trial, b) a big fire or c) they need one of those cutesy "lets show how dumb those hicks up in the mountains are" stories.

We have cable Internet access, DSL, and even wireless -- but what's that got to do with the newspaper? If the local paper is the only game in town anyway, why would they make the commitment to giving away what they sell? Why would they want to reduce their profitability by increasing their costs with no relatively immediate return on the investment?

When radio became popular enough for everyone to have one in their homes, the demise of newspapers was right around the corner. When television came into homes, people were predicting that newspapers would disappear within a decade. It takes a computer with some relatively cheap software, a laser printer, a cheap digital camera and a card table, and a few hundred bucks for the printer, and you can be in the newspaper business.

DOA? Not by a long shot.