Posted 11:28 PM by Gene

Already the hacks have come up with copious excuses for people flicking away their wonderful print product: newspapers are becoming "supplemental reading"; we have more readers than ever on the Web; we're not selling discounted papers; we're not giving the product away in hotels; DO-NOT-CALL LISTS; we hiked the newsstand price by a quarter; we changed the design; the dog ate my homework. While we would not deny more people are getting these oafs' idle word associations electronically than ever before, a Web surfer is not SPENDING A HALF HOUR THUMBING THROUGH STORIES AND ADS, OR CLIPPING COUPONS, OR CIRCLING WANT ADS. We would also note that the Web has presumably not caused ONE PAPER to INCREASE its staffing; that ever smaller papers must inevitably mean ever skimpier Web sites; and that we are in TOTAL DENIAL is evidenced by the fact that NOT ONE OF THE IDIOTS CITED HERE BLAMES THE PRODUCT OR EXPRESSES THE SLIGHTEST DESIRE TO IMPROVE IT.

And it surely has NOTHING to do with KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! TYPING LIKE THIS. One excuse we surprisingly didn't hear is that a newspaper can offer a more "unique", "localized" product and therefore beats the impersonal Internet. HOW CAN THAT BE SO WHEN MOST HACKS THINK ALIKE?