I’ve long contended that the most accurate perception of what is going on with the United States comes from looking at it from afar. So it is that I find it hard to disagree with what Rupert Cornwell of The New Zealand Herald has written about the newspaper industry and institution in this country. The age of printed media’s supremacy has come to an end, Cornwell declares.

It is very difficult to argue with him. In my own neck of the woods, Media General is furloughing employees for ten days of unpaid leave in an effort to cut costs. It’s now being whispered that my hometown’s The Reidsville Review may not survive past the year. Meanwhile, there is evidence that The New York Times may finally crash and burn come later this spring. Fully a third of American newspapers might be bankrupt come summer, according to the article in ...