R.I.P.

I hate how some people are pointing at how terrible newspapers are these days and citing that as a reason for their demise. Nooooo... They're bad because most staffs consist of four people doing the work of 10. That's like going to McDonald's and expecting a gourmet meal. Not. Gonna. Happen. It's not easy to write a quality story, take professional photographs, and then rush to a (slow, ancient) computer to put it on the page before deadline. Most journalists do the best with what they are given, which oftentimes is not much.

I think people don't read newspapers because most of them just don't like to read, at least not when they can turn on the TV news and have information spoon-fed to them. Books are one thing to pick up from time to time, but to invest in pages full of facts each day? That's too much to ask of this lazy society. Internet news stories are written more in the "wham-bam-thank you ma'am" style that is indicative of the way everything is heading... It's all about instant gratification and then moving on to the next thing ("Pictures of Paris Hilton partying! OMG!").

What a sad, sad world.