• The Nation, Friday, April 24, 2009 9:30 AM

Some would say the newspaper business inhabits a surreal world. "So long as we continue to think of the business of providing our society with news as a business in the traditional sense, we will keep feeding it the poison that is hastening its death," according to this essay.

The absurdity of the current moment is best exemplified by the recent threat by The New York Times Company to shut down The Boston Globe within 30 days if the paper doesn't find $20 million in immediate savings. But the Globe is expected to lose $85 million this year. From a purely business standpoint, no one at the Globe is in a position to demand anything of the Times Company at all, so long as its only realistic plan is to continue to lose lots of money.

Rumblings in the Senate -- including a bill to allow newspapers to become nonprofit entities and Senate hearings related to the Globe's troubles -- indicate some awareness of the crisis. "But the notion that Congress is likely to act in time ... to help save a business that cannot save itself is a fairy tale." What is needed is a plan to save the collection and dissemination of the news itself.

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