Is Twitter Killing Newspapers?

John C Dvorak keeps marveling at the reactions of newspapers to declining readership: they lay off writers and reporters! It does seem like a weird response to a marketing problem. If people are not reading newspapers as much as they were, making the product better would seem to be the best response.

Here's a thought: I think that people are relying on more immediate services like RSS feeds, Twitter and radio and television for news. Newspapers are useless for this purpose. If newspapers want more readers, they need to provide more than news, and more than Twitter can give them: local perspectives and meaningful content. Publishing more fiction, perhaps, or more practical news about local issues. Newspapers should have opinions and should entertain, inform and be forums for local discussion. Heck, they should even have their own Twitter and Momentile feeds.