Newspapers increasingly look like dinosaurs, alas.  The web is replacing print as a major source of news.  But when newspapers set up websites the amount of advertising revenue that the latter generate is only a fraction of what comes through print.  If they charge for the websites few people subscribe, except for specialist publications.  Meanwhile printed circulations decline and production costs escalate.  Does it matter?  I think it does.  The web does not contain the opportunity for sustained reflection which the best printed journalism provides.

That’s a fascinating map compilation, and portrays very interestingly the routes of settlement and development through US history, particularly the earlier years (up to 1860 or so).  In the 1817 map I was pleased to see appear the weekly paper published by my 3x great-grandfather at Woodstock VA.  It was the first English-language weekly in the northern Shenandoah Valley, previous ones having been in German.