Kee-rist, the vulture cloud swirling over newspapers is thicker, darker, and more obnoxious than the stains in Rush Limbaugh’s underpants after he takes a wrong turn and winds up in an “ethnic” neighborhood the allegations and cross-complaints in a Beverly Hills child custody battle.

So here’s today’s dire croakings and cawings, all centered on how everyone running a newspaper these days is utterly clueless and doomed to “die like miserable schwein.” Check out the story in the Winter 2005 edition of the Nieman Report, written by the excellent Chris Willis. 

chris willis nieman report winter 2005 citizen journalism

Far be it from me to defend the upper management of Big Media … but the contrarian in me is tempted to swim against the current, to look for all the reasons that the dinosaurs are going to make it, look for the ways in which the actions and business strategy of Knight Ridder and Tribune Corp. and all the rest make perfect sense, that they are acting in the best long-term interests of their … yack! cough! blacccchhhkkk!

Sorry.  Just couldn’t get that one out without choking. What was I thinking?

UPDATE: 12 years later, many of the Shiny New Things in this report are now-standard thinking.Â