"Ha-Ha! You're Medium Is Dying!"

That bon mot was tossed by Nelson Muntz to some print journalist a few seasons back on The Simpsons. It was true then, it is true now. In the last few months, there have been several op-ed columns, and one ridiculous piece of legislation, decrying the death of the newspaper, and, paradoxically, what can be done to save them.

What these have in common is they are high-minded think pieces that want to place the blame on technology, generational changes, or other such intangible factors that make you sound smart if you mention them.

What's killing newspapers is easy enough to see if you actually buy a newspaper, not work for one or try to make a living explaining mega-trends. As a public service, I am going to explain in one simple to understand sentence, why newspapers are failing.

The newspaper's primary objective is not covering "news".

When I get a newspaper, there is one thing I want to get. News. However, today's newspapers don't want to publish news. They want to publish opinions, or ask poll questions, or publish a kid page, or a high school basketball score, or a picture of the band car wash, or anything that is meant to trigger a warm-and-fuzzy emotional reaction in the reader. This warm-and-fuzzy emotional reaction is supposed to act like heroin in the sense that it will keep the reader happy and unagitated, and will make the reader by the paper again the next day so they can see a picture of a clown entertaining sick children in the hospital, whereupon the reader can feel proud about his or her community, and the process can repeat itself.

If you think that is an exaggeration, here are some "headlines" from articles in today's Washington Post.

"How a Pothole Gets Patched" (includes three pictures)

"The Kindness of Neighbors" (not written by an employee for the paper, which makes this article the equivalent of a blog post)

"Anacostia Joins Cherry Jubilee With Festival, Tree Plantings"

"The First Puppy Makes a Big Splash" (Two photos, this article is on the front page, and it also has a poll question)

For those of you wondering, these stories all come from the "news" part of the newspaper, not the Sunday features section.

Considering how expensive newsprint is (a subject addressed in a recent Ombudsman column in the WP), why is this stuff in print? Answer (also found in recent Ombudsman column), the Post has targeted certain types of readers as "must-keeps". One "must-keep" demographic is women, so they must run stories to keep women buying the newspaper.

If you think I am exaggerating, click here. How to Create Future Readers - washingtonpost.com

If the WP has "must-keep" readers, then they have abandoned the purpose of being a newspaper. They are letting the consumers dictate the content instead of using their news judgment (that element that would define them as a "professional" as opposed to a blogger who usually writes about a subject in which he or she is interested) to determine what makes its way to print.

So the "newspaper" is not interested in serving the community. Instead, it is dedicated to serving a segment of the community, a segment that it believes will continue to buy papers and keep the paper in business. And it will refine its product to appeal to the segment of the community from which it can mine a profit.

This is why newspapers are failing. Not because of the Internet. Not because they have been slow to adapt. It is because they have abandoned their primary interest, and are only concerned with staying in business.

RIP, and know that you died of self-inflicted wounds.