I work in the fifth-worst career — stupidity-caused irony

LA Times columnist Rick Horsey says newspapers can still succeed if they'll stop being link whores.

He bemoans the New Orleans Times Picayune going to non-daily in print, and the end of the Post-Intelligencer in Seattle in print entirely, though he appears ignorant of the closure of the web version, even though he used to work there.

The stupidity-influenced irony? It’s not quite click-whoredom, but … the LAT still has a fake paywall. It’s not a Javascript screen, unlike the New York Times, but if you use private browsing mode, since it’s cookies-based, you avoid it that way. Or, I assume simply deleting any LAT cookies will take care of you, too.

More seriously, smart online newspaper analysts say that, for a “real” paywall to work well, the paper or magazine has to have special or unique content. Besides sports, that means Hollywood for the LAT, right? But, with Perez Hilton, TMZ and so many other media blogs, that’s a tough road to hoe, isn’t it?