Sky is falling

Commenting on the demise of the Christian Science Monitor as a daily newspaper, and yet another wave of layoffs at US newspapers, the NY Times reports:

Clearly, the sky is falling. The question now is how many people will be left to cover it.

I'll say this: I think it sheer madness for the best newspapers to have continued giving away their content for free over the Internet. I can't tell you how many times I have been really tempted to buy print and then, at the last moment, resolved to go online for the content instead. And when was the last time I clicked an ad? The best American newspapers and magazines have lost hundreds of dollars of income from me alone over just the past year -- money they could easily have got me to pay.

They quality news media needs to act as one in confronting this problem.