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>So, disclaimer. Journalist turned web developer here. But I really don't think newspapers are going to go extinct, really ever.

Still, particular newspapers have already gone extinct by the hundrends, and the trend is not showing any signs of reversing.

>They are one of the only permanent records of history. Digital publications disappear like yesterday's rainclouds.

Sure, but it's not like people, the average consumer etc, appreciates that fact or gives a damn about "permanently recording history". Most of them don't even print their digital photos, maybe 5-10 of the best ones, whereas they used to have albums with 100s of family photos back in the day. (And most don't even backup their digital photos).

That newspapers served as "permanent records of history" was a byproduct of them being available, dominant and profitable. Not something people specifically bought them and subsidized them for.

>There will always -- always -- be demand for physical products, because as humans we are very tactile.

Well, tablets are quite tactile too. And people have quit CDs and vinyl for mp3s and digital downloads/piracy.

Sure, there's still vinyl pressed. But it's small quantities and is consumed without any wider cultural context in the society, just by a tiny niche of music fans. And pressing vinyl is a $1000 affair -- so you can afford to press 300 copies for stores etc, where running a newspaper is extremely costly, and a print edition even more so. So the difficulty of continuing one is not the same as continuing the other (vinyl) niche tradition.

>The bottom line is that there is always going to be a demand for newspapers and news in general. In fact, people have been predicting the demise of the newspaper since TV was invented.

That's a common logical error. The belief that if people have been making the same prediction that didn't pan out, it will never pan out.

Not to mention: who said it didn't pan out? When radio/TV was invented, newspapers might not have vanished, but they lost a lot of their cachet as THE source of news and information.

The loss in readers was ofset by an increase in education and thus an increase in a middle class wanting to read newspapers. But that was a historical accident. The spread of the internet didn't see any such simultaneous increase of middle class or literacy (probably because they had already hit a ceiling during the seventies).

And TV, back in the day, had limited chanels and was live only. So not much of competition for the newspaper. Nowadays we have 200+ channel options, 24-hour news channels, Tivo and its ilk, and video on demand from the internet. Plus, written news on demand from the internet.

Plus, the numbers (of declining readership) are very different (and much worse) in the internet age vs the tv age.

Oh, I'm definitely not saying newspapers are hunky-dory. They obviously have plenty of challenges to overcome, and you're correct in that a whole slew of newspapers have shuttered their doors, and practically all have employed layoffs to combat declining revenues.

But the simple fact is that newspapers provide a valuable service and product. There just needs to be a change in business model, and there are lots of places trying new ones out. In many places, they're succeeding. Some have even reversed the downward spiral and moved back into profitable territory.

How is the information in newspapers currently preserved which is permanent and accessible (otherwise why archive at all) that a series of articles on the web could not also be preserved?

This is meant as an honest question as I remember microfiche and microfilm as the primary methods for preserving newspaper content. I assumed they were largely replaced with digital subscription based archives like lexus-nexus. And a digital archive can probably archive already digital information at least as easily as non-digital.

I know that libraries often keep physical newspapers like 5 or so years back but even after 5 years due to the quality of paper, ink, air, and occasional use. They are getting brittle and unable to be handled. News papers in their normal form were never intended to be permanent, hence why they were (are?) stored on microfilm or other archival methods.

There is a fourth type of journalist that stays. Those that are passionate about an opinion. And that's a bad thing, because it means the proportion of extremist opinion in media might increase.

> But I really don't think newspapers are going to go extinct, really ever. They are one of the only permanent records of history. Digital publications disappear like yesterday's rainclouds.

According to the totalitarian's guide (aka "1984"), malleability of the past is a feature, not a bug.

I disagree. Newspapers may continue to exist, but I can't see it for the reasons you list.

First off, the news isn't tactile. The paper itself is tactile but so is a tablet. Paper tactility is not more appealing except to people that are uncomfortable with tech. Short blurbs followed by flipping through 16 pages of mostly ads to find rest of article is a level of unfriendliness that is hard to match in online news, though some sites try their best.

On archival and permanence, you're confusing the content with the medium. Try to find a permanent article from the NY times. While you may be able to find the print form, more likely you will find it in a digital medium. It has been decades since print form was the system of permanent record. Articles were being digitized in the 70s.

Online content isn't the same as online journalism. Even so there is an attempt to archive even the most obscure of online content (archive.org and waybackmachine). I doubt you can find an archive of a small town print newsletter. But you can on web publications unless they make efforts to block it.

>> "Experienced journalists aren't staying in the game because there's no money in it. The ones who do stay in it are one of three things: crazy, passionate about the job despite the compensation, or not dependent on the income."

You're right about this, but it's hardly news. Capital-J journalism, rather like fashion and other sexy New York industries, hasn't been a "real career" (e.g. one that will pay the bills) for decades. But it makes a splendid passtime for the children of inherited wealth.

Are you from the middle class or lower and want a byline? No problem---come to New York and live here without getting paid for a half-decade until we give you a real job (still with laughably small salary).