Chicken Little was right

Just when I start to imagine that newspapers might figure out to survive the realignment of the media landscape, the warnings from the deep thinkers become more alarming. Now this from fellow-Landmarkian Lex Alexander of The Greensboro News & Record to the folks at The Media Center:

We need to change quickly. What do I mean by "quickly"? When I wrote my report almost a year ago, I envisioned a minimum of five years to make the transition. But in light of what has happened in the past year in general and today's news in particular, I now doubt we have even that much time.

The Internet makes our current newspaper business model, with its artificially high profit margins, unsustainable. Companies need to decide, right now, whether they're going to stay in the journalism business or not, understanding that staying in means some significant capital investment right now and, according to everything you were taught in Econ 101, permanently lower profit margins in the long term.

Have a nice day!