People just won't quit talking about the "death of newspapers". Newspapers are not going to die. At least not all of them. They talk about the death of newspapers all the time on this website. And I just found some talk on this website.
The following is a comment I posted to another blog on the subject. It's not definitive but it gets the point across.
There's been a lot of hand wringing over the pending "demise of the newspapers". But like most everything in the whole big universe this has all been done before -- a couple of times
In the 1920's a thing called wireless radio was supposed to replace newspapers with it's magical ability to deliver the news to anyone, anywhere. And radio grew and grew and grew until it was a "media giant"; every bit as big as TV is today.
Newspapers did not go out of business because of radio. Newspapers survived for a whole host of reasons.
The whole cycle was repeated in 1947-1952 when television came up and was supposed to put newspapers, radio and the motion picture business under.
To be sure radio was diminished and was never again the media giant it was in the 1930's and 1940's but it didn't go out of business. I can still walk out to my car right now and turn on AM radio and get some news out of it at the top of the hour. There's still a big building in New York called "Radio City."
Newspapers may end up like AM radio, diminished in the future. But like M. Welch points out, if newspaper companies are smart and adapt to the Internets they will survive and thrive. I might point out that AM radio is still a multi-billion dollar industry.
Newspapers will continue to survive. I'm no swami but I'm pretty sure that future people will still want the option to pick up some news and entertainment printed on paper for many years to come.