some general thoughts from a twenty something \new media\ guy…
1. journalism and newsprint are not the same thing. Journalism existed before the days of the Major Metropolitan Newspaper, and will continue to exist. Magazines are still doing well (some of them at least…the atlantic is a good example) because they are uniquely suited to do what the internet doesn’t do as well, which is in depth reporting and analysis.
2. Newspapers won’t die. They won’t even really fade away; I expect they will simply become more like what existed in the early 20th century; slimmer, more numerous, and more targeted. The days of 500 staff reporters working on the one major daily in town may well be over…what I expect to see is perhaps 50 smaller papers each with 10 staff reporters, and honestly I think that may well be better for the news. The Oklahoman won’t go away, the Gazette won’t go away, but they’ll have to compete in a new way.
3.Partisan blogs are not journalism, and I think (or want to think) that most people understand this. Thoughtful people will continue to seek out in depth, thoughtful reporting, and fools will continue to seek foolishness. The impact of a piece of writing cannot be measured by the simple calculus of how many people see it; what matters more is *who* sees it. Case in point: some TV shows get amazing ratings but can’t draw advertisers (so called \empty calories\) while other programming draws very few viewers, but get lots of high-end, expensive ads. The paper has lost it’s position as THE mass media, but newspaper readers are emerging as a specific niche audience: more engaged, more educated on average, higher income…those are attractive demographics for advertisers. Marketing 101: know your audience and want what they want. If newspapers try to be a daily roundup of everything that happened the night before, they’ll fail. That’s what the internet and TV news are good at. If they focus on serious minded long form reporting, they’ll survive.

Steve,
Yes, we are doomed to the sort of future portrayed in “Idiocracy.”

Equal amounts of depth and of simplicity are available in the old media and the new. The media doesn’t determine the use… the habits of the users do. The smarter ones under 30 might eventually gravitate toward deeper content, but that content will not be on paper.

The transition from print to pixels will be complete only after the current generation of print junkies is too small to justify the cost. Habits don’t change, and that’s why the in-depth generation demands depth, and why the younger audience demands shortcut multitasking pixel-bite communications. I like to sit down and read the newspaper. My daughters like to watch TV-text-surf-chat-talk-surf-text-text. Simple habit. I’m probably not going to become a prolific texter… they’re probably never going to read the newspaper. (I do hope someday they learn not to interrupt a conversation every time a text arrives!)

What you’re describing are the kinds of articles still produced in certain magazines–the one that most recently comes to mind is Michael Lewis’ Vanity Fair article on the Greek debt crisis. That is quality.

I’m a under-30 something and that article is well worth the 40 minute read.