Fascinating because as a self-confessed news junkie who now works online, it’s lots of fun to guess and imagine what the future will be, nobody has the much of a clue as to how it’s really going to shake down, so pretty much anything goes.

To wit, in an article in the March 25 T.O. Star, some guru named Jeff Jarvis (blog: BuzzMachine) laid down the gauntlet to news print operations everywhere, urging them to start planning for the day their presses will shut down for good (his prediction: two years).

But at the same time, Jarvis admitted: “We’re all confused… There is incredible opportunity, once we figure out what it is.” My reaction: People are actually *paying* this person for his thoughts?

And while the Seattle Post-Intelligencer recently did just that — went completely digital — the rags in such print strongholds as Toronto, Chicago, London and New York are a completely different kettle of fish. The P-I only had a circulation of 119,000, down from 200,000 in 1998.

By contrast, the Star has roughly 440,000 daily/ 640,000 weekends, though they’re no doubt falling yearly. The NYT is at 1million daily/ 1.4 million weekends (source: what else? Wikipedia)

I’m a news junkie, and grew up with a love of newspapers, especially as a teenager, when I could — and often, would — spend hours on Saturday morning, perusing the exhaustive weekly Major League Baseball batting and pitching stats (now sadly no longer published by The Star).

Funny because this argument reminds me of the one — now, the myth, really — of media convergence as the holy grail of media empires.

Funny also because this most recent round “new tech killing old tech” discussion has been going on for a good ten years now in various forms, e.g., CD vs. vinyl, mp3 vs. CD, DVD vs. VHS to name a few. Most eventually reach an equilibrium and learn to co-exist .

And finally, sad, because I fear that at least some of what you predict will come true, namely the extinction of the printed, ink-staining newspaper.

Like you James, at 42, I’m old enough to have grown up loving newspapers, and currently subscribe to three.

In defence of the printed form, does anyone ever really predict when the glorious Sunday New York Times, and its accompanying special T Magazine editions will disappear?

I don’t know, there’s a place for internet news, when you need or want the most basic details quickly.

But nobody has yet persuaded me there’s a better way to really immerse yourself in a thorough discussion of a news story than with a cheap, handy-dandy, foldable, disposable, recyclable printed page — no batteries or solar panel required.

I look at the nyt on line, but not on a daily basis, because it “eats my time” while other things wait & wait.