Electronic news, as it is currently consumed, is a disaster for newspapers, because the industry hasn't figured out how to monetize it. According to , the newspaper industry gains $1 of electronic news revenue for every $10 it loses on the print side.

More important than revenue losses, in my opinion, are the horribly wasteful costs of running a newspaper. Newspaper editors and publishers might spray coffee all over their screens upon reading this, given the way cutbacks and are decimating the industry. The problem is that newspapers look at costs and efficiency from a company perspective, not an industry perspective.

In fact, the whole model of what a newspaper is and how it's put together is perfectly antiquated and obsolete, a throwback to the telegraph era.

Before radio, newspapers held a near monopoly on the delivery of information about events in the world, the nation and local communities. In the last century, newspapers fulfilled a wide variety of other roles, offering public notices of every description, plus opinions, games (like crossword puzzles) weather forecasts, arts reviews, display advertising, classified ads, calendars of events and even serialized fiction.

Newspapers were the indispensable, all-purpose information source for educated citizens.