The industries Timothy references, and others often reference, are not analogous to the media industry. In each of these cases, the consumer is willing to pay for new product or services thus creating a transition path to a different paying business model with a true revenue stream. Timothy and other media consumers are not willing to transition to a “pay for service” model and want it all for FREE. If he could only obtain the type of news product he wants via a new “pay for service” model via the internet, the newspapers might have a chance. Unfortunately he isn’t and there isn’t enough advertising to support even a slimmed down newsroom needed to create the content he wants. The newspapers and media companies are partially to blame for this having put all their original content online for years with the assumption that advertising would follow. It hasn’t, and they continue to pursue this path. If all the media companies were to stop putting content for free online what would happen? Consumers would continue to desire the content and be forced to pay for it again (in print or online). However, because the industry continues to pursue this same old online model with free content, consumers will continue to demand it for free. And, if one major media company continues to do it then all are forced to follow. The only hope is for the media is to stop giving their content away for free. Free doesn’t pay the bills or payroll. Like musicians and authors of books, reports and publishers should be compensated for their original work. Maybe the industry should create an “itunes” type service and charge $.99 for each article read. Or maybe, the Timothy’s of the world should just pay for a subscription to the papers he wants.

You forgot to mention that MPC is also "shutting down" The Belle Plaine Union. Poor choice of words.

I feel for the East Iowa Herald and many other newspapers that have to cut back or halt print operations altogether during this time of difficulty for the newspaper industry.

However, to give it perspective, this is what the manufacturers of the old LP vinyl records and later Compact Discs, film cameras, Polaroid Instant film cameras, the pager, DAT player and cassette, typewriters, and anything analog have been faced with for the last 20 years.

Ironically, just two basic binary numbers, 0 and 1, around which the digital world is formed, have brought us the point where the music, photography, newspaper, book publishing, and other industries are all going to be transformed or fall by the wayside.

However, there has to be an opportunity in this sea change. I live in Uganda in far-off East Africa where at best, say 20 or even 15 years ago, the only hope one had of reading the major American national newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post was at the U.S. embassy or United States Information Service offices in our capital city, Kampala.

Today, not only do I get to read these two papers online, but I have just read the East Iowa Herald online, a paper that would ordinarily be too obscure for an African reader.

If I have somehow stumbled on the East Iowa Herald paper, with just days to go before it suspends its print edition, in that is the future.

Just as we migrated from film to digital camera, left behind the old LPs (that I personally have refused to give up), for CDs, in June 2006 mobile phones for the first time exceeded the number of fixed, landline phones on earth, then too the newspapers will go through their immediate and painful decline at the hands of the Internet.

But if you can reflect on the significance in this African 8,000 miles away reading, of all small-town, middle American papers, the East Iowa Herald, then there is every possibility that once you make the adjustment to the new online world, you will not only thrive once again, but will, by default, become international newspapers.