Facile attempts like this are always supported by the observations Mindich cites: that the grand majority of young people neither know nor care about politics, economics, or world events. Why is it that I, as a 22-year-old, have made peace with this while older generations continue to agonize over it? The last time that a college-age generation was obsessed with what was going on in the world at large, older Americans spent their spare time characterizing them as airy-headed pinkos who weren't paying attention to finding a good job and other pragmatic concerns. This view rubbed off on the boomers, worried that they really didn't accomplish anything during the social upheaval of the 1960s, and eager to seize the system of acquisition that they had abandoned. And then it rubbed off on us, their children.

People my age who might be interested in these issues are far more concerned with their income after school than with debates over the sources of unemployment or other such issues. We were taught that this was the real reason for education, charity work, religion, political organization, or other activities: achievement in a competitive environment where future employees would judge us based on our lives as totalities, supplemented by Internet search engine results for our names and electronic background checks. It only pays to be interested in news, in other words, if you can find someone to pay you to be so.

This doesn't even include most of my childhood friends, who never went to college and are eminently concerned with working their way up in the world of service jobs. Why should they want Internet access, cable television, or newspapers that drain their spare cash and serve to distract them from acquiring a stable position?

I have come to grips with this. Most people my age do not show interest in things they have been taught are secondary, and world events have been relegated to this role. They never will show this interest unless there are is a dollar sign in front of it and a lot of zeroes behind it. Why should they? Who taught us that would be a good idea?

Those who want to better our future should concentrate on the very young, and make another stab at instilling pragmatism while retaining awareness as a virtue, instead of trying to grab our eyes with flashy graphics. All you'll get from us is a lot of begging that you hire us to design the next issue or critique it in an online newsmagazine.

Obviously, I'm older than the demographic in the article.

But I really can read a lot of news from a number of perspectives, online, in my home office, at my own pace and my fingers stay clean.

Transmission of news is simply moving to a different communication mode.

A week ago, the last telegram was sent. I see a similar obit for the printed newspaper some years hence.

I'm reminded of the theory that if you turn to the funny pages in the paper first each morning, you'll live longer. Like many daily Red Eye readers, I start in the back--with the celebrity gossip, movie news, then gradually read most of the paper in my 20 minute train ride to work.

Though I'm admittedly conflicted about the Red Eye, its a good way to ease into my day before reading the CHGO Tribune online, Slate, and other more in depth sources throughout the day. The Red Eye is free, easy to read in the train, and more or less enteraining. A reasonable way to start the day.

I have noticed that the Red Eye has gotten much dumber. When the Red Eye wen truly free a few months ago, the design and editorial content changed too, with even less news (down to a half page each on most days for national and international coverage). I miss the news, but the celebrity stuff keeps me picking it up each day to occupy my mind before my first cup of copy.

Just because Red Eye and other publications dumb down the news, does not mean that their readers are dumb. These publications are just a small part of what many of us read each day--a spoonful of of sugar without much medicine.

One more thing--the Red Eye columns are the most horrible, useless, annoying, waste of space that I have ever seen. Whatever other crimes against the mind the editors have committed--this is the one for which we should lock them up and throw away the key.

Too bad that this piece missed one of the more salient aspects of the Tribune RedEye debacle, the fact that it completely failed to find a paying audience and only switched to being a free publication last October. I was in my mid-20s and living in Chicago in 2002 when both the Trib and the Sun-Times launched their "youth-oriented" tabloids (the Sun-Times named their copy-cat the Red Streak. HA!) so I find it amusing to read about the episode now. I happened to work in an office full of recent college grads who read the Sun-Times out of convenience (face it, the tabloid is the superior format for public transit), and the Trib out of some warped sense of obligation and a penchant for masochism (the paper endorsed Bush--in Chicago?!), but everyone knows they're both pretty damn awful. We also waited with bated breath for Thursdays when the new Onion would come out, and yes, we were also devotees of The Daily Show and Salon. We read the RedEye on the train, like everyone else, for its weekly listings of drink specials and hard-hitting features dedicated to sorting out the city's best beer gardens. That's about as seriously as anyone I knew took that paper and I'm shocked that you were able to find someone to say otherwise.

A few years before that I'd plunked down the cash for an NYT sub, only to find that I was responsible for the pulping of many a fine tree so that my neighbors could steal my paper most days and I could feel guilty discarding whole issues unread. All that paper, all those plastic bags, and really, in Chicago you were considered fairly naive if you believed in the recycling program or the tooth fairy. Now I find myself living in Oregon and refusing to buy The Oregonian because it's so blatantly bad that it routinely gets scooped by the alternative weekly in Portland. Come on, is it really any wonder we don't read the daily paper? Or rather, that we skim it for free in coffee shops on our way to finding the crossword puzzle? Every so often I'll buy the NYT, WSJ or FT for a long layover, or if I find myself without a book to read on the bus, but the web really has rendered the paper a relic for me, no matter how many romantic notions I have to cast aside to say it.