Eric Alterman writes the following in the New Yorker about newspapers:

Three centuries after the appearance of Franklin’s Courant, it no longer requires a dystopic imagination to wonder who will have the dubious distinction of publishing America’s last genuine newspaper. Few believe that newspapers in their current printed form will survive. Newspaper companies are losing advertisers, readers, market value, and, in some cases, their sense of mission at a pace that would have been barely imaginable just four years ago. Bill Keller, the executive editor of the Times, said recently in a speech in London, “At places where editors and publishers gather, the mood these days is funereal. Editors ask one another, ‘How are you?,’ in that sober tone one employs with friends who have just emerged from rehab or a messy divorce.” Keller’s speech appeared on the Web site of its sponsor, the Guardian, under the headline “NOT DEAD YET.”

In his New Yorker article on American newspapers, Eric Alterman asks whether the liberal U.S. news website the Huffington Post is the future of news delivery.

From AP via CTV.ca:

The Los Angeles Times apologized for using documents that were apparently fabricated in a story implicating associates of Sean "Diddy" Combs in a 1994 assault on rapper Tupac Shakur.

From the NYT:

According to interviews and recent surveys, younger voters tend to be not just consumers of news and current events but conduits as well — sending out e-mailed links and videos to friends and their social networks. And in turn, they rely on friends and online connections for news to come to them. In essence, they are replacing the professional filter — reading The Washington Post, clicking on CNN.com — with a social one.

From the Globe and Mail:

Call it the double-double defence: Would dangerous jihadists take a break from their winter training camp to warm up inside a Tim Hortons?

Defence lawyer Michael Moon raises the question in a new motion concerning the so-called Toronto 18 terror trial. Citing previously undisclosed evidence to be presented at trial, he argues that any schemes of the accused have been grossly exaggerated by informants, police and the news media – and even by the group's own ringleaders.

“In fact this hapless F-Troop, who ventured into the deathly cold of winter without a proper tent … was reduced to sleeping in the vehicles at night to prevent freezing to death,” writes Mr. Moon in a new factum. He adds they went “trooping off to the Tim Hortons multiple times a day for coffee and use of the bathroom.”

Here's an absurd, non-sequiturish thought: Maybe the secret to peace in Afghanistan is to agree to a foreign troop withdrawal on the condition that the Taliban agree to play nice with the elected government and not support global jihad.

In exchange, we'll leave behind a network of Tim Hortons shops. As this case shows, even jihadis have to go to the can and both warm and double-double up. :)

Except the evidence so far suggests some of these mildly hypothermic Timbits fiends were serious.

Addendum

I can't believe the lawyer used an F-Troop reference. Talk about dating yourself. :)

As an aside, Mike Myers used to be served by a German waiter in Ottawa who became the template for his "Dieter" character on Saturday Night Live.

Apparently this guy once told Myers: "Larry Storch is a much-maligned genius." :)

If you don't know, Larry Storch was an F-Troop star.

Ahem. I've just dated myself.