THERE are many signs that traditional media are no longer what they once were. As newspaper sales fall, news stands are being closed, print editions are ending, and those media remaining are forced to aggressively diversify to stay afloat.

The Financial Times' sister paper in Germany closed early this month after losing money for more than 12 years, meaning more than 300 employees will lose their jobs next year.

The Newspaper Death Watch website has been chronicling the decline of US newspapers since March 2007, when the portal was created.

Since then the growing list of US metropolitan dailies that have closed include the Oakland Tribune, Rocky Mountain News, Baltimore Examiner, Kentucky Post, and many others.

The list of major metropolitan dailies that have reduced publishing frequency or adopted hybrid online/print or online-only models include the Ann Arbor News, Christian Science Monitor, Detroit News/Free Press, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

The most ominous sign is that traditional newspapers are no longer looked up to as a source of information.

Ironically, human beings have never been so addicted to information.

Everywhere you see people preoccupied, wrapped up in their hand-held devices.

In a matter of few years, these gadgets have evolved into expert providers of infotainment, scandals, seductive photos, rumors, and, occasionally, solid reporting and analysis. Generally, users prefer light fare and trash.

People who have the wherewithals and volition to share a certain kind of information become members of one clan.

Terry Eagleton, a literary theorist, once said that "Modern societies deny men and women the experience of solidarity, which football provides to the point of collective delirium. Most car mechanics and shop assistants feel shut out by high culture; but once a week they bear witness to displays of sublime artistry by men for whom the word genius is sometimes no mere hype."

He said that in a social order denuded of ceremony and symbolism, football steps in to enrich the aesthetic lives of people. The sport is a matter of spectacle that also invites the intense participation of its onlookers.

Communal feeling

The equivalent of football in the online age is, of course, weibo, which to a degree provide a kind of affinity that seems more culturally nuanced than football.

Meanwhile, traditional media outlets must resign themselves to their role as purveyors of more orthodox narratives, or follow-ups on scandals first exposed online.

You only need check the recent news to confirm the existence of this pattern.

Xinhua reported recently that Zhou Weisi, an official of a neighborhood community in South China's Guangdong Province was suspended from duty and placed under investigation on November 27. This followed online tips that he owns more than 80 houses, villas, factories and mansions, more than 20 luxury cars and a high-end hotel, valued at 2 billion yuan (US$3.1 million).

That same day, Zheng Beiquan, former vice mayor and police chief of Yingde, Guangdong Province, was placed under investigation for corruption, after some of his subordinates alleged online that he had been a patron of drug traffickers.

There is now a long list of officials whose careers took an abrupt hit when videos recording their sex escapades were leaked online.

When we examine the number of officials who are compelled to face the music following online exposures, we find that the cyber world not only outshines traditional media as whistle blowers, but is also taking over the duty traditionally expected of disciplinary authority.

While it is yet early to foresee its long term impacts, there are signs this new paradigm shift is already causing considerable damage to traditional media.

It already poses a serious challenge to the concept of professional journalism, as practiced by trained reporters, rather than the so-called citizen journalists.

As a consequence, the media are fighting hard to stand up to the ethical principles that once inspire them, without bowing too much to insidious commercial interests.

Often it becomes a battle of life and death, literally.

At a recent forum, the editor of New Century magazine Hu Shuli emphasized the importance for newspapers to live up to their ethical principles and once-prestigious image, and not be undermined by commercial interests. That's the formula for commercial success, she said. But that's a rosy view of the situation.

Beyond profit

Still, media are more than providers of infotainment.

Historically, even newspapers in the capitalist world were not primarily profit-driven.

According to "The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications" by Paul Starr, politics had exercised considerable influence in the development of the media before World War II, though media have evolved differently in the US and Europe.

By the early 1800s, the US was already a world leader in popular journalism, postal services and newspapers, partly because US media needed to build a national political system on a transcontinental scale.

The US model was based on a broad postal system, commercial printers, high literacy rates, numerous newspapers and civic involvement.

"Publications weave invisible threads of connection among their readers. Once a newspaper circulates, for instance, no one ever truly reads it alone. Readers know that others are also seeing it at roughly the same time and they read it differently as a result," Starr writes.

Thus, the US government once subsidized newspapers rather than taxing them, which made newspapers cheaper and more accessible.

While Starr does a tremendous job of detailing the roles of such diverse factors as innovation, invention, patronage, luck, law and competition in their influences on media development, we are still uncertain what the cyber world has in store for us.

Newspapers have survived radio and television, but this time, as the Newspaper Death Watch lists reveal, it seems to be different.

As traditional media as a commercial concept has become passe, quality newspapers and magazines can only be sustained by non-commercial considerations.

The sooner our politicians wake up to this, the better.