I'm looking forward to the day when the New York Times figures out how to deliver exactly the stories I want, in hard-copy printed format, to my door.  Personalization plus the feel of newsprint.  Yes, it'll be expensive, but these times demand my Times.  Reading online and reading offline are different experiences, and I'll forever be of the generation that wants a paper to hold.

Today I'm looking for news about North Korea.  It's a Wag the Dog moment -- perhaps we'll all stop thinking about Foley if we're worrying about nuclear warheads. And I want to hear more about Anna Politkovskaya. 

Russia is unquestionably a dangerous place for journalists — less so than only Iraq and Algeria, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Thirteen of them have been killed since Mr. Putin came to power in 2000, a little more than two a year on average.

We need reporters like Anna Politkovskaya.  The LA Times had an opinion piece today that said:

...[T]he slaying of Politkovskaya. . . illustrate[s] that it is the messenger that matters. Insurgents, criminals, terrorists and corrupt politicians understand very well that it is the months or years of digging by professional reporters, many of them supported by traditional news organizations, that will expose misdeeds.

. . . . YouTube, Google, Flickr and many other websites offer valuable tools for keeping the world informed. But they are not a substitute for Politkovskaya and her colleagues.

Societies are judged on how they treat their most vulnerable citizens. We suggest that added to that calculation should be whether journalists have been threatened, assaulted and killed. Tell us how many journalists were assassinated in your country last year, and we will tell you what kind of society you have.

The sub-headline of the LA Times story suggests that the "killings of old-school investigative reporters prove their work is crucial."  There must be a more straightforward way to prove that you're central to society.  I'm hoping that personalized printed paper shows up soon.  I don't want newspapers to die.