The big scoop on print media tragedy

The digital revolution roiling all media in societies plugged into the Internet is having a profound effect on journalism across the world. Paper has become the stone tablet of our time, not quite as hefty in weight but in other respects as cumbersome.

The effect of the digital revolution, however, is not universally even. Economies that are still rapidly developing will feel it less than those that are more mature. China seems to be launching newspapers or magazines almost every other week. In the US, in contrast, they seem to be folding or changing ownership almost constantly, usually in downward spirals.

Perhaps the digital revolution is hitting hardest in the US, where the media are accorded a special role. The towering importance of the news media in the US political system is well known but not often emulated around the world. It's the rare government that would welcome a media powerful enough to topple it, as The Washington Post helped to do to former US president Richard Nixon in August 1974.

And so it was not surprising that the sale of the financially troubled Post - the leading newspaper of Washington D.C. and one of the leading newspapers of the world - to Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos for $250 million hit many of the Americans hard in the stomach. It is almost as if the Vatican had decided to sell itself to an international resorts corporation for condo redevelopment. The comparison is only somewhat of an exaggeration.

While the US' greatest newspaper, The New York Times, is still controlled by the Sulzberger family, which deserves the nation's gratitude for keeping it great, the country's most politically pugnacious paper has been The Washington Post, whose legendary editor - now "vice-president at large" - is 91 but, in a manner of speaking, still kicking.

My respect for the newspaper medium goes deep - to the way the entire daily package is put together in order to offer us a large picture of the world, and to the overworked and underpaid editors who work diligently to maintain professional quality control. Even a mediocre newspaper is no blog.