Stop the presses! Newspaper era over?

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When it comes to news about the news, no news is good news.

The Rocky Mountain News recently wrapped up operations. The Tribune Company filed for bankruptcy protection. The New York Times and Washington Post have announced layoffs.

And the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which has been in production for more than 140 years, continues to produce news stories, but beginning this month it's doing so only online with a reduced staff. The Ann Arbor News will follow suit in July.

Are we really facing the demise of the great metropolitan daily?

It was the newspaper that became as powerful a force as any it covered, the kind of power Charles Foster Kane delighted in wielding in "Citizen Kane." It was the newspaper that brought news of crime and corruption to its readers, with an energy - and occasional manic recklessness - captured in the classic "His Girl Friday."

And it was the newspaper whose proudest moments came when it held the powerful to account - even bringing down "All The President's Men."

Hard as it for those of us whose day cannot begin without the newspaper, it is a medium that cannot survive without dramatic change. Indeed, it's not clear if it can survive as we know it at all.

But does that mean an enormous vacuum, an absence of the kind of information a democratic society needs? Or are there new sources emerging to do that work?

Longtime media watcher Michael Wolff said, "It's the end of the newspaper business right now at this point in time."

Why is Wolff predicting the imminent end of the newspaper?

Consider the facts: Just since 2000, daily newspaper circulation has dropped from 55 million to 50 million in the last two years … print ad revenue for papers dropped 28%, more than $11 billion - and that was before the recession really kicked in.

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