Shouldn't This Be AnnArborGuy's Story?

The Ann Arbor News print edition is shutting down. I know this sort of thing is happening all over, but it still comes as a shock.

I admit when I lived in Ann Arbor, I didn't regularly read the News. Like so many others, I would check out the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press (both of which are in trouble as well) and sometimes a national paper like The New York Times. But it was good to have a full-sized Ann Arbor paper around for local information. Their building was right there downtown, part of the life of the city, and I knew several people who worked there over the years.

I recognize this is part of a bigger trend. TV started killing newspapers years ago, and now, perhaps, the internet is the coup de grace. Maybe I should celebrate that forests are being saved, but the passing of something so central to so many is sad. Ann Arbor has a population of over 100,000, and is obviously a literate place. If a print edition of a paper can't manage there, I don't see how it can manage in any small town.