Almost ready to embrace The Dark Side
In recent months, I've noticed my daily routine changing. After waking, smooching my wife, starting the coffee, and feeding the pets, I stumble outdoors and pick up the paper. I'll check the headlines and see what idiocy is on the N&O edit page, and then boot up my laptop and read the news online. This is a big deal, and a total reversal of how I've consumed newspapers over the past four-plus decades. As a child, we often subscribed to two daily papers (The Winston-Salem Journal and The Charlotte Observer .) When I went away to college, at times, I'd take three -- the Charlotte O, the News & Observer, and The Durham Morning Herald . I'd often catch up on The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal in the library. I'm a newsprint and ink guy. And yet, I'm getting more and more of my information over the Web. For one thing, the N&O -- and most local dailies -- are shrinking, constantly. There was a time last year that, on a typical Mond...