In case you're not familiar with it, the title above is the frequently asked question from Brad Delong a highly regarded professor at the University of California, Berkeley (my alma mater) and former Treasury Department deputy assistant secretary.

I first became familiar with Brad when he submitted responses to the questions of the week I used to ask when I was writing a column for the online version of National Journal.  I've since taught a class or two for him when I was visiting the Berkeley campus several years ago, his extraordinary blogging was the original inspiration for my starting CG&G, and he has been exremely gracious in linking to several of my columns and many of Andrew's, Pete's, and my CG&G posts.

Brad's latest post finally prompted me to enter the fray about the media.

My day job is as a managing director of a communications firm. So in addition to being frequently quoted in stories and appearing on radio and television to talk about the budget, I deal with the media in some way every hour of every day.  These multiple roles that seemingly cross the lines that used to exist were actually the subject of a wonderful and much-appreciated discussion Brad and I had with journalism professor and former New York Times reporter Susan Rasky when I visited Cal.

The questions Brad has been asking about the media have been a constant source of both personal and professional interest.  I absolutely share his concern about the continued existence of newpapers as the "news hole (the amount of pages actually devoted to news) keeps getting smaller.  I am one of those people who looks forward to Saturday and Sunday mornings when I have the time to read the paper with a great cup of coffee.  I get frustrated when there's less and less to read.  And, especially when you talk about The Washington Post, there has definitely been less to read.

But I have a problem with Brad's latest post, in which he agree's with Ezra Klein's thinking on why the media is becoming less and less relevant and, therefore, important, to the political campaigns.  Klein's conclusion is that it's the media's fault.  It should, he implies, be doing a better job of covering the campaigns because in some absolute sense, that's what it's supposed to do.

There might have been a time when that was absolutely true.  That was also the time when a PR person couldn't appear on television as an expert and when someone like Pat Buchanan wouldn't be accepted as a commentator a day or so after running for president.

But today, with the large number of additional sources for information like CNN, MSNBC, Fox, CNBC, Bloomberg, etc, and everyone having to compete for eyeballs and ears not just with each other but with reruns of Friends, Scrubs, and Seinfeld, all news sources are changing how they povide news to match what the consumers are willing to read and watch.  Rather than getting worse, they are simply responding to what their market is telling them it wants.

The best example is not a newspaper: it's the Today show on NBC.  When I grew up, this was the news program everyone watched while they were getting dressed for work.  Now, however, more and more people are out the door at 7 am when the show airs and its audience has changed dramatically.  As a result, what used to be a news program (at least the first hour, anyway) is now a lifestyle program for retirees and stay-at-home adults full of stories on celebrities, health, cooking, and fashion. 

Another example is the evening news on all of the broadcast networks.  Many people now have one of the cable news channels on in their office through the day, get alerts on their Blackberries, or go to the web for updated information.  By the time we get home (How many of us walk in the door in time for a 6:30 p.m. broadcast anyway?) we don't have to watch the evening news to find out what happened.  Not only do we know because we were watching during the day, but we got an e-mail alert with an update after we left the office.

What does that mean for the evening news?  First, it's now written for people with just an 8th grade education.  Second, the stories are much shorter so that its more likely each viewer will see something she or he likes before hitting the remote to go to a different channel.

The fact that news is now driven by market and financial concerns is nothing new.  Ken Auletta wrote about it 15 years ago in his book Three Blind Mice.  What is new is that the change Auletta noticed is accelerating rapidly.  That's why Brad may well be right when he predicts that some papers may only have a few years left.

The better press corps Brad wants may actually be happening right before his eyes as communications channels like the one Klein mentions continue to multiply and candidates, companies, nonprofits, governments, and individuals have many other ways to reach their audiences.  It won't be as sexy or romantic as newspapers, and the phrase "Stop the presses" will have to be replaced with something more suitable ("Stop the pixels"?), but it's likely to be as important as the printing press was in its time.

It just won't be easy to drink a great cup of coffee while you read it.