Newspapers R.I.P.

It's popular to blame the Internet pipes for this:

• Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times exploring bankrupty
  

• Miami Herald up for sale
• Rocky Mountain News up for sale or, it will close.

But, personally, we blame the very idea of journalism schools. The fate of newspapers was sealed the moment someone got the notion that a college degree in journalism would qualify you to do the same job as young Mark Twain, Bill Nye, Margaret Fuller, Eugene Field, Lincoln Steffins, Nellie Bly, H.L. Mencken, Grantland Rice, Walter Lippman, Martha Gellhorn, Ernie Pyle, William Shirer, Edward R. Murrow, A.J. Liebling, John McPhee, Izzy Stone, Scotty Reston, Murray Kempton, Tom Wolfe, Walter Pincus, and Seymour Hersh, among perhaps a couple of thousand others.

Still, you're gonna miss 'em when they're all dead and gone.