I started out disagreeing with your points, because I both share the newspapers I take (at the house and at the office), and I bookmark articles (it's called clipping, but I'm old-fashioned and use real scissors). AND I still comment on an article because I say old-timey things to clients like: "Say, Hank, did you see that piece in the Calendar section today? What a pile of turd stew, eh?" (That's like tweeting a link with a stinger.)

But I finished the post and see your overall point. I don't read the LA Times and the Wall Street Journal and the trades because they're honest coverage or timely news or well written (at least not the Times.) I only read/scan the funnies (most important part), Calendar, Business and special sections (Health on Mondays, Food on Tuesdays, etc.) in the Times -- it's pitiful in contrast to the net, twitter, and Jon Stewart. And I love the WSJ, but only for its Personal Journal section... the real stuff gets a headline scan (although it's well written.)

BUT! Here's why they're still getting my $55/year (of course you can bargain with them to get a low rate!) Clients over 40 or out of state love it when I clip and snail mail something that I show them they can use. And it makes me a resource for them, no matter how long it's been since they used me.
AND I have access to both online. I see something I want to email to someone, I just search the headline keywords in their site, boom, copy/paste/email=hero to whomever needs to see it.
AND I can read it up on the roof in the sun, or over a late solo b'fast, or circle a headline for the BoyPie to read, or rip out the review and put it in the car for the next time we say "where shall we try that's new?"

I get way more timely news, research, info, etc., online. But I'm in front of my screen enough as it is and the newspaper on my doorstep each morning lets me see what others in my town, in my industry are seeing this morning -- and that's good for the bonding, the trading of opinion, and the reminding of the bond and the support. So it's become useful for a different PURPOSE -- (although it's always been good for silly-putty prints!)

Thanks for making us think ~ !

It's interesting how the scenario in the US is so different from that in India. All the points you've mentioned are valid but I think that because the Internet penetration in India is much lower than in the US, newspapers are still going strong here.

Over the last year, Bangalore has seen the *launch* of 2 newspapers (English) in a market that had at least 4 English newspapers. Not to mention the Indian language newspapers.

I read a lot on the web but I still like reading the newspaper in the morning--it's more to do with the habit than anything else I think.

Another point is that newspaper can't compete with online media in terms of timeliness. It'd take the newspapers a day to print out what happened yesterday while Twitter/Blogs update in real time as events happen.

No news outlet, including TV and radio can compete with the internet on timeliness, or depth for that matter. Radio, TV, and newspapers have to fill their time or space requirements and squeeze all the ads in. The internet is pre time shifted, and news items can be as deep or shallow as needed. Also you can "follow" a topic much better with RSS, Twitter, Google alerts, etc.

Now that everyone will soon have awesome handheld always on internet, it's OVER.

but you CAN rub silly putty on it and MAIL it.

good post, the only thing I find newspapers useful for is when I'm sitting in a hotel lobby or on a train or somethere else where there is nothing to do. All this tells me is that I need a kindle.

Heh. I used to love that. The funny pages are the only thing I ever liked about newspapers, and what I still like today. Maybe it's because you can spread them out and take them all in at once. On the web you can only see one strip at a time.

Maybe there's an opportunity there for someone to build a webcomic aggregator that displays them all on one page.