"It's time to save journalism from its saviors," is the sub-head of this inspiring polemic cum book review from Matt Welch.
Monopoly newspapering in the U.S. is an idiosyncratic -- and extremely lucrative -- business, conducted largely by a small handful of companies. It is entirely possible that many accepted industry practices, such as maintaining massive staffs (the hardly top-notch San Francisco Chronicle has more than 500 editorial employees, for instance), are more accidental artifacts of evolution than logical organizations of resources.Four out of five new newspaper hires have journalism degrees, but maybe one in 5,000 have been plucked from the fertile minor leagues of online journalism, at a time when Internet punditry has exploded in popularity while newspaper op-ed sections continue to disappoint. The stock newspaper columnist caricature of the nonconformist, passionate, politically incorrect populist is found almost exclusively on the Web nowadays.
Layne has the final word:
Maybe it doesn't matter. These people are dying out, along with their sick and bloated industry. If it ever gets really weird around these parts, I'd trust Matt Drudge and the editors of Maxim a helluva lot more than these pompous frauds.