Jeannine Guttman's column today announces news that all of us must have expected, and nobody wants to hear. As our society shifts its attention towards on-line media, and away from print, print circulation goes down, ad rates drop, and, eventually "adjustments" need to come. That's sad for the wonderful staff who've been let go or enticed to leave, but also for the rest of us ... left with something less of a newspaper. Jeannine Guttman promises a re-invention of the paper, produced with fewer staff and fewer news bureaus. I hope her vision is realistic, and that this moment will appear later to have been a time of change rather than the beginning of the end.

Of course, I could see it coming. The paper has been getting thinner. When we had an apartment for rent last year, almost all of our responses came from free ads on CraigsList, rather than the paid ads in the Press Herald.

I mourn this change -- as I want both new media, and the kind of thoughtful reporting and reflection that can only be shared in print. My media diet includes "All Things Considered" on NPR, and the New Yorker magazine, as well as the New York Times, Press Herald, Boston Globe, and CNN on-line.

Of course, if you're reading this, you MUST be on-line. But, please, don't be just on-line. Continue to subscribe to newspapers, buy newspapers, write letters to the editor, and help keep a print culture alive!

And, whatefver you read, don't believe it at first. Find a second source, and see what they have to say. Read about or hear the same story reported in different ways, by people who come with different points of view, different experiences.

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