Witnessing the death throes of an institution

The old print media continues to experience financial woes. Today it is the LA Times that has fired it's second editor in chief in a little over a year over his refusal to cut jobs.

The Los Angeles Times fired its top editor after he rejected a management order to cut $4 million from the newsroom budget, 14 months after his predecessor was also ousted in a budget dispute, the newspaper said Sunday.
James O'Shea was fired following a confrontation with Publisher David D. Hiller, the Times reported on its Web site. The story didn't say when the confrontation took place.

Revenues for all of the old print media organizations is being severely impacted and as this story points out they are having to continue to cut staff everywhere. A big problem, in my opinion, is because there is very little news being published today that is being talked about but rather all of the editorials and the general taint of what passes as news being either biased or so full of factual errors to make the story irrelevant. People spend more time talking about the nature of the story rather then the content of the story. Newspapers can give you headlines but their substance leaves you with the same feeling you get after eating Chinese take out. An hour later you are hungry again.
Newspapers serve a purpose, and certainly without their news gathering abilities we would be seriously hindered in our search for news, but unless they can figure out how to turn around their losing ways that is exactly what will happen.
I am not happy with the cable news on TV either. They all seem to be about celebrity news or the latest missing person instead of bringing us news of the world. That is all driven by ratings which translate into dollars from advertising. So while I can sit and gripe about the nature and quality of news on TV I am then slapped with the realization that they are simply putting out a product that the public laps up. That is more an indictment of our habits then it is the cable news shows who show 22 1/2 hours of the latest missing person and 90 minutes of news that informs.