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1. 

   fennec said, 9 months ago

   May well be…but I hope not.

2. 

   believecommonsense said, 9 months ago

   if so, so goes democracy … there’s a reason the framers of our great country protected a free press … buy a newspaper today!

3. 

   HUMPHRIES said, 9 months ago

   Hey fennec ! Look at us here now. In the old days a stamp and the postal service gave me time to think up a real snappy comeback for questions.

4. 

   cdward said, 9 months ago

   Our local weekly published its last issue two days ago. Rumors are now that our daily will fold by June. That leaves us with no local coverage at all. It is truly depressing.

5. 

   redheadsandrazorbacks said, 9 months ago

   hmmm…our only state-wide daily just changed the tee-vee gudie to save some jack. they must be doing fairly well as they still pay deering to do 3 crappy daily strips.

   I still buy one every day tho…

6. 

   deadheadzan said, 9 months ago

   I hope not because I think more investigative reporting takes place when it’s put in print. The comic is funny though.

7. 

   Simon_Jester said, 9 months ago

   A few months ago, I was lamenting on this site the fact that the cartoon strip Lio had been rejected by my local paper.

   This was right after Foxtrot went into Sunday only mode; they were looking for a replacement, and so what they did was run a different ‘candidate strip’ every week ( Lio was one of them ), and then ask their readers to vote on their choice to take over the Foxtrot space.

   The winner? Not any one of the four new strips. Instead, the overwhelming reader’s choice was Peanuts rerurns.

   I mention all this because one of the replies to my post told me that the most likely reason Lio had been rejected in favor of Peanuts redux was due to something I hadn’t been aware of – For the past decaded the newspaper-reading demographic has been growing steadly OLDER. ( The average age is low fifties, if I remember correctly. )

   The people who don’t read newspapers are the younger crowd, and notice the age of all four ‘journalists’ in this cartoon.

   One thing about Horsey, the guy knows ‘subtle’

8. 

   HUMPHRIES said, 9 months ago

   Simon_J, oldie will tell you the Virginian Pilot did very much the same thing. Other results though Peanuts is still loved. You’ve touched on a point that may very well be true about older readership. I can get the International Herald on line at no cost. I still buy a hard copy once or twice a week for about three dollars a copy because “nothing” beats a few quiet moments having a coffee with a paper in hand.

9. 

   harleyquinn said, 9 months ago

   Yeb the yo tube American idol idiots that were acorn driven voter base. Big O I give you the ignorant that put you in power!

10. 

    believecommonsense said, 9 months ago

    HarleyQ, you’re kidding, right? The younger generations that don’t read newspapers is all Obama’s fault? Only GOP-leaning young people read newspapers and don’t believe what they read online or listen to on talk radio? If you believe that, you’re living on a different planet than the rest of us …

11. 

    oldlegodad said, 9 months ago

    And for Oboy the sooner the better…

12. 

    Simon_Jester said, 9 months ago

    We may be ‘ignernt’ Harley…but WE’RE not the ones insisting the economy expanded under Bush, now then are we?

13. 

    HUMPHRIES said, 9 months ago

    harleyq, Do you read anything at all? Sounds like you’ve had your ear glued to a “radio”.

14. 

    jkshaw said, 9 months ago

    Horsey is necessarily exaggerating in this pretty telling cartoon (Horsey is always on the mark!) but I think newspapers will adapt to the Internet, and we have some pretty good outlets for original news and opinion like RawStory, Huffington Post, Slate, DailyKos, and others, which are becoming, and have been for some time, more and more relevant.

    And, incidentally, SimonJester, I’m 79 years old, part of the elder demographic that you describe so well. However, as much as I love to hold a newspaper in my hands, I’ve been reading news mostly online since 1990 and writing a garden-book-history website since then as well. President Obama called on (was it Stein of?) the Huffington Post during his last presser and caused the traditional media to lose its eyebrows into its combover – but the world is changing, and for the better as far as ease of reading a variety of viewpoints is concerned. News and viewpoints from all over the world.

    I’m all for change myself.

15. 

    Ronjr said, 9 months ago

    jkshaw– just the way I feel I can read so many news sources on the internet also a big thing I like is on usa today web site you can read peoples comments and you can see how people feel about things from all around the u.s.

16. 

    believecommonsense said, 9 months ago

    jkshaw, liked your post, and bravo for you for keeping up with changing times. I subscribe to local newspaper to help keep it going (it’s not very good) and I read many other newspapers online. I like the increased variety of news sources, but recognize, as Tom Brokaw said, that the sheer variety and number of sources places a responsibility upon the citizenry to seek fair and balanced news coverage and weed out fact from fiction. Some people do and some don’t.

17. 

    Simon_Jester said, 9 months ago

    jkshaw…hope I wasn’t painting with a broad brush here. ( I’m in the 50 something demographic myself. ) Though I subscribe to my local paper, I also get most of my news online.

    I agree with BCS that you have to be very careful in selecting your news source. As a rule, I try to stay away from blogs, unless they happen to be associated with a news source I trust. There are also certain news sources that are bit too jingoistic for my blood, The Guardian for example. ( Home of bar none, THE nastiest political cartoonist on the planet, Steve Bell. )

    One error a lot of people make is to confuse an editorial website with a news source. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen folks on news forums, from the left AND the right, post a link to an Op-Ed piece and call it ‘news’.

18. 

    HUMPHRIES said, 9 months ago

    Good point Simon_J.

19. 

    Michael said, 9 months ago

    HUMPHRIES says:

    harleyq, Do you read anything at all? Sounds like you’ve had your ear glued to a “radio”.

    Is that all you got? Unclever putdowns of others?

20. 

    Michael said, 9 months ago

    believecommonsense says:

    if so, so goes democracy … there’s a reason the framers of our great country protected a free press … buy a newspaper today!

    Uh, free press includes television and internet news. Not that these sources are any less biased….

21. 

    HUMPHRIES said, 9 months ago

    tigernest, like I stated I’ve not grown up enough to ignore ignorant insults. Wasn’t ment to be clever but pointed. I do indeed have my failings but I don’t feel the need to sit idle and have something I believe smeared not becaused it’s disagreed with but because the poster feels mean spirited.

22. 

    believecommonsense said, 9 months ago

    tigernest1, of course, free press includes broadcast news and online news (read my post re Tom Brokaw’s insightful comment) … i don’t want to limit free press … too many people confuse opinions with news though, as SimonJ said … i believe in the print media because it, more than other sources, puts the resources into investigative journalism which costs $$

23. 

    millerdunwoody said, 9 months ago

    Oh, David, David. A little overstatement here? What, Huffington Post gets a shout-out from da prez and suddenly on-line journalism–which really exists, David; have you read Dave Neiwert, who lives in your own neighborhood?–is nothing but a bunch of idiots. C’mon, dude, you’re way better than that.

24. 

    John Lustig said, 9 months ago

    Dave does his cartoons for The Seattle Post-Intelligencer–which is currently for sale. The chances of selling the paper look extremely dim. Right now, the best hope for it to continue is either a buyout by the employees or the paper becoming an Internet only publication. Or both.

    And according to Dave (I’m here in Seattle) our other daily paper may not survive through the rest of the year either.

    As a former Seattle journalist (now a comics creator here on GoComics–Last Kiss), it’s pretty depressing. I mean, I love reading stuff online, but no local print news? Ugh!