I think the business (the paper side, anyway) was doomed - but the financial mess seems to have accelerated the process. The Tribune company just filed chapter 11, and the NY Times has hocked their new building (when I first heard about their new building, I wondered what they were smoking):

Today was a big day in the world of media, as the Tribune Company, which owns the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Baltimore Sun and other properties filed for bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the New York Times staved off Chapter 11 for the moment, at least, by borrowing up to $225 milion against the building that it owns in midtown Manhattan--the company's one asset that still has undoubted value.

I stopped getting the Sun years ago - my wife disliked having the papers pile up when I traveled, so I just stopped getting it. I travel less now, but with the net, I just haven't seen the point - I subscribe to all the comics I want to read in BottomFeeder, and I can get news from more sources than I can count from my desk.

I think the future of media is going to be small - small staffs of people putting out hyper -local news, with aggregators (like Google) putting it all together for us. The problem for the current news media is that this idea is completely alien to them. Very few businesses survive a disruption of their core business model - witness Ken Olsen and DEC. Over the next few months, I expect to see a ton of newspapers stop printing.

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