Baltimore Examiner, we hardly knew ye!

I HATE bad news about the newspaper industry, and this is just awful: The Baltimore Examiner is closing after its February 15th issue.

This does not bode well for B-more. Recently, the Tribune declared bankruptcy, and the Baltimore Sun, b and The Aegis are Tribune companies. I still don't know how that's going to work in the long run.

Is this really the death of print journalism? I don't think so. What are people gonna read when they gotta' poop?

But seriously, I think the industry is changing, not dying. I think we're going to start seeing more papers following the alt-weekly model. The biggest problem is that people don't want to pay for their news when they can get it for free on the internet. This is going to mean more ads. It might mean less dailies and more weekly or monthly publications. I think we'll see papers focusing on local issues and leaving the national stuff for the internet and television.

I enjoy getting the paper delivered. On the other hand, I get it delivered for free because I work for the paper. Would I pay for that content? I don't know. I'd like to say I would, because my paper only covers local issues, and there's really no other way to get that news (yes, there are local blogs, but they steal their content from The Aegis.)

Anyway, I'm sorry to see The Examiner go. It was nice to have more than one option for news in this town.