Well, we’ve seen story after story about prominent newspapers across the nation publishing it’s ‘last issue.’ Citing financial woes and a lack of interest in its tangible media format, papers in Seattle, Denver and Chicago have closed their doors to vie for readership on the worldwide web.

This is the first post in a series that will take a look at the decline of the newspaper industry, how we are to deal with it as intentional media consumers, and what we can expect in the near and distant future.

Today’s post is simple.

I pretty much read everything that Bill Simmons (a.k.a ‘The Sports Guy’ for ESPN) writes, as it is both comical and informative. His latest entry is primarily about the news that Kevin Garnett is most likely lost to the Celtics for the playoffs. However, as every great writer does from time to time, he inserts a gem of knowledge… a veritable sip of ambrosia… within his consistent outflow of grandeur.

I will do nothing else than simply ask you to read the following:

There’s a hidden sub-story lurking here: It involves the fall of newspapers, lack of access and the future of reporting, not just with sports but with everything. I grew up reading Bob Ryan, who covered the Celtics for the Boston Globe and remains the best basketball writer alive to this day. Back in the 1970s and early ’80s, he was overqualified to cover the team. In 1980, he would have sniffed out the B.S. signs of this KG story, kept pursuing it, kept writing about it, kept working connections and eventually broken it. True, today’s reporters don’t get the same access Ryan had, but let’s face it: If 1980 Bob Ryan was covering the Celtics right now, ESPN or someone else would lure him away. And that goes for the editors, too. The last two sports editors during the glory years of the Globe’s sports section were Vince Doria and Don Skwar … both of whom currently work for ESPN.

For the past few years, as newspapers got slowly crushed by myriad factors, a phalanx of top writers and editors fled for the greener pastures of the Internet. The quality of nearly every paper suffered, as did morale. Just two weeks ago, reports surfaced that the New York Times Company (which owns the Globe) was demanding $20 million in union concessions or it’d shut down the Globe completely. I grew up dreaming of writing a sports column for the Globe; now the paper might be gone before I turn 40. It’s inconceivable. But this Garnett story, and how it was (and wasn’t) covered, reminds me of “The Wire,” which laid out a blueprint in Season 5 for the death of newspapers without fully realizing it. The season revolved around the Baltimore Sun and its inability (because of budget cuts and an inexperienced staff) to cover the city’s decaying infrastructure. The lesson was inherent: We need to start caring about the decline of newspapers, because, really, all hell is going to break loose if we don’t have reporters breaking stories, sniffing out corruption, seeing through smoke and mirrors and everything else. That was how Season 5 played out, and that’s why “Wire” creator David Simon is a genius. He saw everything coming before anyone else did.

This is crux of what we will discuss in the coming days. Think about it.