It was simple and unobtrusive enough — a small color strip advertising CBS television at the bottom of the page. But for those who follow print journalism, it might as well have been a tolling bell.It wasn’t just any page. It was the front page of the Jan. 5 edition of The New York Times, the newspaper’s first Monday issue of 2009. The front page until then had always been free of ads, a testament to the prestige the paper wielded. But recently, the Times — and print journalism in general — has been suffering and was forced to put even its once-sacrosanct front page up for sale to pay the bills.Print media’s financial woes are well documented. They began with the advent of the Internet. As more people began to look for their news online, newspaper readership began to slump.The declining economy has turned that slump into a crisis.Newspapers, already losing readers to the Internet, have had more difficulty finding sufficient advertisements to meet operating costs. The New York Times Media Group faced a 21.1 percent drop in November, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. This drop is especially dire considering it was election season, which should have generated huge revenues.More sinister, the Tribune Company, which owns The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune, filed for bankruptcy the same day the The New York Times’ first front-page ad ran. With such monolithic news entities as the Tribune and the Times suffering, and smaller, local newspapers closing their doors entirely, it’s hard to avoid the fact that print news is facing imminent extinction.With print media on the verge of collapse, the question must be asked — does print deserve to die?In some respects, the Internet is a clearly superior method of communication.  It is ubiquitous, easy to access and immediate. Online journalists can change content in real-time and respond to events as they unfold.  And online editions allow for participation from readers through comments and polls.From a business perspective, it is far less expensive to run an online operation. And from an ecological standpoint, the Internet isn’t made from felled trees and polluted ink, like its paper predecessor.With all of these advantages, perhaps paper media doesn’t deserve to live. In many ways, the transition is already occurring.  Unable to support their print operations, newspapers across the country are switching to digital-only format. The arguments for the continued existence of paper media are growing less potent every day. Most supporters of print point to more intangible benefits of paper — the concrete feel, its more tangible nature, its ease of reading with the morning coffee. Some people just can’t stand reading on a computer screen.  But these complaints are largely those of the previous generation — we grew up looking at computers and are used to getting information from the Web. And as technology increases, this disconnect can only get smaller.Many media critics point out print journalism is a more deliberate media — it takes a measured, analytical approach and  provides far better commentary and context.Internet journalism has the same potential flaws as TV journalism —  research and context are almost inevitably sacrificed in favor of breaking the story.These flaws may be real, but they’re irrelevant.  Those concerns, though important, are largely within the realm of intellectuals, and the average reader is simply looking for convenience, affordability, accessibility and immediacy.And in all of these areas, the Internet is clearly superior.Matthew is a 19-year-old mass communication sophomore from Baton Rouge.—-Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected]