When you gotta go...

When I woke up after a fitful sleep in the middle of the night not long ago, I did what I always do when I have too much on my mind for an uninterrupted slumber. I headed to the kitchen and gobbled up some Cheerios.

And read the paper.

And why not? I didn't have time to read the whole thing the morning prior, so I found myself catching up on the stories I had missed. Sure, the news was "old," but I wasn't looking for the box scores from the Lakers game that ended just a few hours earlier. I was perusing through the so-called think pieces. I read a couple movie reviews. But most important, the paper was convenient. It was right there. I didn't have to turn on a computer. I didn't have to wait for it to boot up. I didn't have to log in. And I didn't have to deal with any popup ads.

Why do I bring this up? Because everywhere I go, everything I read, the message is the same: Newspapers are a dying breed. the Internet is infinitely more convenient. Only dinasaurs read print. The brain surgeons who run the industry seem intent on running from what people want and destroying the quality of print in a stampede to reign supreme over an online medium that can't even pay for itself.

It's madness.

Yes, there is an audience online. And if you want to succeed in the 21st century newsgathering business, you'd better excel in that medium. But online isn't the cure-all. Everytime someone in my family goes to the crapper, they take a paper, not a computer. Everytime I see someone catching up on the news while riding a bus or trolley, they're reading a paper, not a computer. Everytime I sit in a doctor's office waiting for my appointment, folks are reading the paper, not a computer.

Fact is, we have hundreds of thousands of newspaper readers in every large city, yet you could hardly tell by the strategy some in the industry are following.

Look. I use the computer as much as anyone to communicate, as evidenced by this blog. And when I want to see who won the latest basketball or baseball game, I eschew the sports ticker on ESPN and log on to a computer instead. By the time the paper comes out in the morning, I know everything I need to know about what's written about the Dodgers or Lakers in the LA Time sports page. I've even read the latest New York Times headlines on my cell phone while riding the train home from work.

But I'm also a newspaper reader. As are well more than a million other people in San Diego County. And there are stories in the paper that I would rather read in the paper. There are conveniences with print that you cannot get online.

So why are we losing so many newspaper readers? I suppose more than a handful are dying. And even more are cutting back because of the economic collapse. But our refusal to even acknowledge that newspapers are the medium of choice for tens of millions of Americans, and our failure to strategically market what has long been a cash cow is shortsighted. And pretty damn stupid.

As for me, I'm logging off for now. There's a story or two I didn't get to read about the Chargers this morning, and I have to go to the bathroom.