Rachel, you've nailed it. Print media is increasingly irrelevant. The morning paper is old news, merely a print version of what was online the night before. Investigative journalism? That died years ago, around the time the Bush administration lied our way into Iraq. For immediacy, look at Twitter on the night of the attacks in Mumbai.

Charitini is awesome - I clicked on loads of links!

We should rejoice in the decline of corporate media. It's served primarily as a propaganda arm of the government and business community since Woodrow Wilson first tamed it with his Red Scare campaign. It's complete demise can only serve the cause of restoring true democracy, missing for more years than anyone alive can remember.

Rachel, that is one big but, as in "It may not save them, but some newspapers really got it last year."

Newspapers are dying for lack of ad revenue, not for lack of blogs. The "it" newspapers need is a means of monetizing online content. The "it" they got ain't worth spit.

"Otherwise, dominating stories included two nearly-naked men, Michael Phelps and Eliot Spitzer (what covers more, a Speedo or socks?)"

Apparently, socks take precedence:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy1_1TUrWs8

I've never heard of a Speedo Gap :P

Print is increasingly irrelevant but what was printed, the content, is still as relevant as ever.

Monetizing such content is going to come as advertisers find themselves with a need ("How's anybody going to hear about me if I can't advertise anymore?").

Bloggers (and podcasters.vidcasters, webcasters Twitts and the rest of the social/new media,) just have to be there somewhere waiting while a new class of middlemen arises.

These middlemen will play roughly the same role that the networks and the traditional advertising agencies played.

The role will change in that the agencies will have to become skilled in the new metrics (CPM and sponsorship don't cut it anyore,) and their success will be commensurate with their ability to discover the bloggers, podcasters. vidcasters etc.

The next "Jay Chiat" will be somebody with eyes and ears open to what advertisers need in their constant search for product recognition and placement (playing a role such as anticipated by William Gibson in "Idoru" [Chia McKenzie has an allergy to "faux".])

Allen, you hit the nail on the head!!! Lower your ad costs and maybe more business will come in. It's that easy.

If you can't sell it at $10 reduce to $8 . No buyers at $8 sell for $6 ....that's the free enterprise system. However something went wrong around GWB presidency. Now we have it that if you can't sell it for $10, lay off some workers. Dumb asses!!!!

This is the only 2008 wrap I care about. Excellent work. I'm a fan. I wanna be like you when I grow up. I'm fed up with everything about the past 30 years of media, and you've fed me a feast of hope and excitement about my own 09 enterprise.

maybe its because i don't have a single subscription to a print paper....but aren't these predictions all a little...2008? Weren't papers dead in...2006?