Well, by God, a smattering of good news for a change:
Circulation revenue for daily newspapers grew in 2012 for the first time in a decade as more people paid to subscribe to digital editions, according to data compiled by the Newspaper Assn. of America.
So if you make a date online with a 16-year-old girl you've never met, and she turns out to really be a 16-year-old girl rather than a 45-year-old, pot-bellied cop named Max participating in a sting operation aimed at you, you're still not home free, Bub:
You really don't have to get into politics to explain the decline of newspapers today. People are abandoning print as they turn to the Web and other alternatives. The more people quit the paper, the fewer resources the paper has, so the more it cuts back on coverage, and the more people stop reading because of the decline in quality. Vicious circle.
You know, this really never occurred to me, but it makes sense:
You go, girl! Er, well, hold on a sec . . .
Police in northwestern Indiana say a 16-year-old girl allegedly drove 60 miles to beat up another girl who spread rumors about her on Facebook.
An encounter at a Best Buy provides a revealing glimpse of the breakneck speed of change these days:
The clerk asked if he could help, and I said I was looking for a cheap virus-magnet laptop loaded with crapware. He asked me to repeat myself. He said the offerings on the showroom floor were scant, but I might try the website. He also said something interesting:
I don’t use a computer myself.
