Even on its last day in print, I didn't feel compelled to purchase a paper copy. I took a digital memento instead.

Today was the P-I's last day in print. The online version persists, but no one seems confident that it will survive. The consensus is that the old newspaper is dead.

Like most people, I'm saddened by the newspaper's demise. But I'm a bit confused by the feeling.

I was never a reader of the print version and only an occasional reader of the online counterpart. The truth is, I didn't read newspapers until they became available online. And when they did create online versions of themselves, every newspaper in the world was available for the reading, whenever you wanted, for free. The online versions are not full-featured, but I haven't missed anything if I was never going to subscribe to the print version anyway.

I've been thinking about this, the disparity between lamenting the demise of print journalism while also never being a subscriber. It makes sense to me to feel the loss of a civic, if commercial, institution, but I have a more difficult time understanding why I grieve the loss of print newspapers generally. It is interesting to observe that I am a bit disgusted by the public's unwillingness to pay for the work of journalists only to remember that I am one of those people who, if I were forced to pay, would likely choose to go without. So I wonder, what is it exactly that I think I'm losing?

If I'm honest with myself, I think it is the shattered assumption that journalism, as practiced by newspapers and other print media, exists to elucidate public and not-so-public events through investigative work and the pursuit of and adherence to fact. I think I take some comfort in believing that if I want to know what is happening in the world or what my government is doing, I can pick up a newspaper and become an informed citizen. The fallacy of that belief notwithstanding, I do believe I'm not alone in having embraced this worldview. It is our collective sense of the role of newspapers in our society.

But for many years, most things I've learned about current events I've learned by reading bits and pieces I've found on the Web. Most of these bits have not been articles or stories researched and fact-checked by an assembly line of staff journalists and editors. Most of this information has been watercooler gossip by way of blogs, which editorialize and link to the original story or which botch a scoop with unchecked patience at best or toward the goal of a bared agenda at worst.

Perhaps because I have been a critical consumer (firehose drinker) of this type of information for so many years, contemplating its triumph over the established news industry scares the shit out of me. I want to get out the bullhorn and urge people to pay for the careful work of journalists. But then I remember that I have to convince myself first, and I can tell that I'm still undecided. There is some soul-searching to be done. The truth is, I don't trust our established media either. I believe in hardworking, honest folk, and I know they're out there. But I also believe that the precarious economy of print journalism has increasingly disfavored their efforts. (The political occupation of all news media aside.)

Although it has been coming for a long time, the demise does seem swift. The economic crisis, no doubt, has catalyzed it. In the past few months, everyone has been weighing in on the issue, all searching for the source as if the identification of a culprit at this juncture will illuminate a way the demise could have been prevented. Often the musings are wistful and you can feel the grief in the copy. Longtime editors and commentators opine on our collective loss, unable to offer insights from the loft of their tenure. I see that they struggle like I do to grapple with the myopia that results from our proximity to the unraveling. We know what is happening, but we can offer no solace to ourselves.

In December, David Byrne wrote what I hadn't seen written anywhere else, the gist of which is that if a populace isn't interested in the news you can't make them want it. They will survive without it and they probably won't be unhappier for it. At the time, the idea was a bit tough to swallow. It still is, I guess. But I recognize the truth in it. How often do I cling to some small thing no one else cares about? I think about all the negotiations at work and in life generally in which I discover that I'm the lone hold out on an issue. In my minority position, I must yield to the position of the majority. So arguing that we must now care about newspapers because we'll miss them when we're gone, even if we haven't been patronizing them, doesn't seem like a tenable position.

Clay Shirky has recently expanded on this idea. Briefly, he says that the publishing model has been destroyed and we don't know yet what will replace it. Oddly, I haven't seen that simple idea promoted elsewhere, but it is the most sensible statement about the shift I've heard so far. It doesn't lay blame and it doesn't predict what none of us can yet see in the turmoil of the emerging mediums. He did not say this explicitly, but I would also guess that this transitional period will be much longer than our digital-speed, instant-gratification sensibilities can easily tolerate. I think most of us will find false harbor in believing we know the shape of things to come in order to protect us from the anxiety of not knowing.

About a year ago I started snapping pictures of the daily headlines of the Seattle Times and the Post-Intelligencer as seen through the little windows of their newspaper boxes. I liked the conversations the two papers seemed to have and thought of starting a blog as a scrapbook for that quirky exchange. It exists in its original and incomplete incarnation on this site. I have had plans for reconstructing it into a form that I think is better suited for what I want to do. At the time that I started the project, I had no hint that one of the papers would cease printing or cease so soon. Suddenly, the little project is a different kind of project. I still plan to complete it and I'm interested to see the shape it takes. It might have been and still might be unsuccessful, but I'm glad I thought to undertake it all the same. Another beginning and end and beginning.