Decoupling newspapers

My wife works for the local newspaper (thankfully, in their less layoff-prone online division). So I’ve been wondering about this whole newspaper business collapse would work out. Clay Shirky’s got an important point:

Society doesn't need newspapers. What we need is journalism. For a century, the imperatives to strengthen journalism and to strengthen newspapers have been so tightly wound as to be indistinguishable.
It's not about the end of newspapers, it's about decoupling the core of journalism from newspapers. We'll see how that pans out. Let's just hope cable news doesn't take its place.
Adam Keys @therealadam