So The Times (the vaunted national "newspaper of record") may shut down The Boston Globe

- allegedly New England's "NoR" - maybe (to all three propositions), but is it a cultural tragedy or just one more step in the evolution of communication? I grew up in a two newspaper town (Springfield Massachusetts had The Republican and The Union back in the 50s) and when we moved to the greater Boston Metro area ('59) there were three or four (let's see, Globe, Traveler, Herald, Record, American (or Record-American?) which later fused into the Herald-Traveler and Record-American, and the Sunday Advertiser. There may have been more, I'm not sure. The point is newspapers aren't all-of-a-sudden disappearing, and certainly not for nefarious reasons. They're no longer commercially viable as a mode of mass communication. Period. If they were profitable, they wouldn't be going out of business.

When I subscribed to a newspaper, it was the Globe for a long time, then it was a more local paper, as I got more & more of my national & global information from radio (NPR) and online over the last 15 years. Newspapers ceased to have a place for me partly because they're physically awkward, they lack immediacy, you can't really read the paper while you're driving, etc.

So what do we lose when we stop reading the paper? I haven't subscribed to a newspaper for 15 years or so, 10 at least. I've missed crossword puzzles, the funnies, lots of biased bloviating, tons of dubious reportage, but I've gotten more than my share of that elsewhere. I guess I'm part of the problem - a physical newspaper holds no magic for me whatsoever. Oddly, I don't feel the same at all about books, and don't EVEN threaten my pulp copy of the TLS...