Like anyone who works at an "ink 'n' grit newspaper" these days, Mark Morford is asked all the time if his medium is dead, he writes in the
San Francisco Chronicle. Among the other questions:
"Aren't all the nation's print rags suffering a horrible hemorrhaging of money and readership and cred? How much longer can dead-tree news possibly last in the age of blogs and cell phones and ADD
media?" And the answer to most, he says, "is, of course, yes. And no. And sort of. "Everything is changing at an unprecedented pace that excites and terrifies almost everyone involved until you want
to hold your head in your hands and scream and drink and cry." Technology is moving so fast "you shall soon need a wireless router for your digital toaster that also produces grappa and makes stock
recommendations and plays MP3s through your fingernails." But at the same time, he knows of not a single "pseudo-hipster" who downloads tiny Nelly Furtado music videos to their Nokia "for four bucks a
pop and then sit around a cafe with three other pseudo-hip girlfriends, all plugged into the phone and jamming to the song via headphones, like all those Verizon commercials seem to fantasize."
Translation, he continues: "You gotta maintain a proper perspective."
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