My girlfriend loves newspapers. She’ll swipe them off tables at restaurants where people have left them. Those of you in the news business, she’s on your side.

But, it’s a growing issue among many photojournalists, or at least it certainly seems to be, as to where the printed news industry is going. Today alone I encountered no less than three blog posts and articles about this subject, and you know it’s a hot topic when even web comics start hopping in with some fairly mature and biting criticism. So, for a change of pace while I wait for some exciting camera news to come out, here’s some reading on stuff that really matters for those of you using cameras:

Walter Pincus (Columbia Journalism Review) has a fairly lengthy and equally interesting article talking about “Newspaper Narcissism” where he throws out his personal views as to where printed journalism dropped the ball. I can’t agree with him entirely, but he makes some compelling points.

On the “where do we go from here?” side of things, the big fuss is over the new Kindle and it’s possible application as a news reader (here). According to Wired, at any rate, the demographic this needs to be sold to the most (namely, college students) seem skeptical still. At least for textbooks, but I can’t help but feel the same criticisms are going to carry over to journalism. Although the one professor in their post is a ray of light.

I don’t know where we’re going. I’m a man of apertures and contrast filters, myself. Fine art shooting isn’t a lucrative hobby or career, but it does have little overhead. But for those of you in the crunch because of this, we feel for you, and we’re all keeping an eye to see which way the winds going to blow on this. To all you PJs and magazine shooters hurting out there right now, we wish you nothing but luck.