Fanning the flames: the death of the printed newspaper

Why, oh why, can't the industry itself quit lamenting over layoffs and job cuts, the role of blogs and online news, dwindling circulation, and start moving foward in the industry?

I want to fan the flames as much as possible. Of course, being someone who will still have a job (as opposed to sales reps, press crewpeople, and delivery staff), maybe even a better one after the changes happen, the sooner the better.

I don't mind waiting, but the longer I wait, the more stress I have to deal with as sales reps push meaningless advertising in a product with little metrics other than coupon clippers. Perhaps that's why sales reps fail so miserably to maintain online advertising sales with local advertisers; the model used for so long in print doesn't exactly show itself to be effective online, when we see hundreds of thousands of impressions but can count the number of clickthroughs on two hands (maybe including a few toes, for the really obnoxious advertising that forces a user to click a skip button).

Lets rejoice at the evolution of the medium, rather than lament the shedding of well-worn skin.

I'd like to close by linking to a number of blogs and articles by my constituents, who have words more eloquent than my own on the topic.

-WFL