The stake in the heart for newspapers arrived two days before Christmas. Ho, ho, ho.</p><p>&#8220;The Internet Won,&#8221; could have been the headline, had anyone bothered to report this long-awaited tipping point. Sometime during 2008, more people began receiving their news from the Internet than from newspapers, a study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press said in a report released Dec. 23.</p><p>The numbers were even starker for younger readers, who of course indicate a future where this trend will be more pronounced. Among people under 30, three out of five polled now prefer the Internet as a news source to television and newspapers.</p><p>Journalists have every right to be frightened at the dramatic change unfolding in the news business, but not to take on grandiose airs about it. We don&#8217;t need navel-gazing pontification or hand-wringing about the demise of the profession. Some columnists would have you believe that, without the watchful eye of print journalists upon them, governments would run amok and society would crumble. That the greed and corruption that created the current financial crisis and economic debacles of the day would never be exposed without legions of print journalists on the case.</p><p>I agree, but with far less bravado. Much of the credibility modern journalism enjoys comes from a highly codified professionalism that has preserved editorial independence from the business side of the newspaper. Separation of church and state, so to speak. But this has meant that reporters and editors have remained gloriously insulated from the workings of their own business, from how the money comes in and the bills are paid.</p><p>The professional ideal that serving the truth or the public interest comes before making a buck goes along with the belief that such a role is indispensable to a free society. But this ideal has been underwritten, at least in the case of newspapers, by favorable (some would say monopolistic) business conditions in which high margins were possible from a captive market of advertisers. Newspapers used to make oodles of profits in advertising revenue. Classified ads, those little one-liners to sell a car, an extra refrigerator, grandmother&#8217;s dining room cabinet, or a litter of puppies, paid for the costs of paying reporters, buying newsprint, running the presses and delivering the paper to front doors. Store ads, those full- and half-page color eye-grabbers, generated thousands of dollars a pop.</p><p>Much of that advertising has migrated to the Internet, where space is much cheaper, even free. So, too, has newspaper content. An often-reiterated point is that bloggers and radio reporters rely heavily on the work of print journalists. Where else could they get the grist they need for their spin mills? And among the most popular Web sites people are turning to for news are those run by newspapers themselves.</p><p>So publishers face a conundrum: Their &#8220;product&#8221; &#8212; the news &#8212; is more in demand than ever before while the business operations that have long paid the bills &#8212; advertising and paid circulation &#8212; are in serious decline.</p><p>No government bailout is forthcoming for newsprint. Nor is it likely that billionaire philanthropists are going to pick up the tab for failing newspapers.</p><p>I like to believe that capitalism will eventually sort this out. If the role of written journalism is truly important to sustain a free society, some way will be found to sustain operations. But that sort of free market churning will take time.</p><p>Journalists will have to adjust to new realities: lower pay, probably, and new challenges and competition in the wide-open field of the Internet. So, yes, I join my colleagues in worrying. But I&#8217;m confident the public will always clamor for the news, and there will always be men and women who answer the calling of journalism.</p><p>Distributed by Tribune Media Services