I think there's still a place for print in news analysis - in the space between raw news and history books. What there isn't space for is reporting on current events - because those events are past by the time they hit print. Mike Masnick nails the but lots of "Obama won!" sales for what it was: souvenir buying:

Some publishers celebrated the rush to buy newspapers as evidence that newspapers were still relevant and that in "big events" people still turned to print papers. Except, that's not true. Publishers who believe that are deluding themselves. People got the actual news from the internet and TV. The newspapers just represent a souvenir of the event -- not the place to turn to for news about it.

The place the Christian Science Monitor went will be where most of the surviving papers will end up: online. Print editions will likely dwindle to weeklies, with the possibility of special runs when there's a real souvenir sale possibility.

Technorati Tags: newspapers