I’d like to start this entry by introducing you to one of my best friends. Pap (otherwise known as my grandfather) is 73 years old. He’s just a small town boy, born and raised in Lykens, PA. He’s an ex-mailman who’s been retired for two years.

We speak via cell phone every day before I leave for work and more often on weekends. Like many posts prior, we know many in Pap’s generation are not digital, they are not tech-savvy and they are certainly not avid smartphone, Twitter or Facebook users, or even computer literate. But there is one advertising medium that Pap enjoys… in his pajamas, feet on the recliner, with a cup of coffee. Yep, you guessed it – the one advertising medium that is on its deathbed.

Pap religiously reads The Patriot-News, where he has obtained information, news, sports statistics, politics, and even weather updates for the past 50+ years. We discussed the decline of print newspapers the other evening over dinner.

“Holy smokes,” he said. “You know that Patriot-News? It’s getting thinner and thinner by the day.”

We all know 2009 was a bumpy road, especially for newspapers:

• 105 newspapers have been shuttered
• 10,000 newspaper jobs have been lost
• Print ad sales fell 30% in Q1 ‘09
• 23 of the top 25 newspapers reported circulation declines between 7% and 20%

These facts prove people would just rather have news at their fingertips, on their smartphone or laptop.

We know the newspaper is close to extinction, but could you really imagine a world without newspapers? No classifieds, no Local & State, no Food section, no ads from local restaurants, no sticker updates from Planet Fitness that their membership is only $1 (not 75 cents), no high school sports, no comics, no letters to the editor, no coupons…

Local newspapers are the complete package. You don’t have to read the whole paper, but it’s all there – from news you may not want to know (but should) to feature stories that touch your heart. You can cut out your wedding announcement, an honor roll list that your baby brother made or a sports story that includes an NFL football player like Jahri Evans, who made it to the Super Bowl and hails from my alma mater, Bloomsburg University. When my great-grandmother, Pap’s mother, passed away, at the age of 103, we cut her obituary out of the newspaper and laminated a copy of it for him.

No future version of Google or Bing is going to give him that!