The Slow Agonizing Death Of Dead Trees

It's no wonder George Will is bitter about all the new mediums for information exchange. His medium is dying a slow and painful death. Consider this, the McClatchy Co. has announced it will sell the Minneapolis Star Tribune to Avista Capital Partners for $530 million.

It was all of eight years ago that McClatchy purchased the paper for $1.2 billion. McClatchy does expect to receive a future tax break from the deal pushing the proceeds from the sale to $690 million so they only lost about half of their investment. Here is the statement in their press release. From Market Watch:

"This decision will better align our portfolio for today's changing media environment," said Gary Pruitt, the company's chairman and chief executive, in a statement.

Yes, the media environment is changing, and to be honest it isn't necessarily all for the good. While I like to thumb my nose at such dinosaurs as Will, I do understand that these media sources are very valuable and I do not wish to see them go away. Somebody better start figuring out very quickly how to save them because losing the information they put into the public domain whether it be online or on dead trees will sorely hurt this country.