Jon Talton is the king with THE DEADLINE MAN but here is Connelly again on the death of newspapers, in THE BURNING ROOM

		The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly Edition: Hardcover		650 used & new from $0.01
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful A Loving Obituary for American Newspapers, August 10, 2009 This review is from: The Scarecrow (Hardcover) This is one of Connelly's best mysteries. It is also an obituary for all newspapers, although focused on the Los Angeles TIMES. Not everyone will grieve with Connelly as I do. I was in email contact with an editor at the LA TIMES on a day when 140 people were let go. I have spent months, all told, in the old NYPL Annex and many other libraries reading nineteenth-century newspapers, my head in a microfilm reader or standing in pain over low flat tables turning big pages or, very rarely, working at a high slanted stand kind to the back. I have a special love of American papers when 10 or 12 papers were in tough competition and another 20 or 25 catered to special audiences. Many, many other readers of Connelly will bring their own newspaper history to THE SCARECROW, and grieve in their way. This is a fine mystery, but it is more. This early tribute to the vanishing newspaper may remain one of the most heartbreaking anyone ever writes. Here is Connelly in THE BURNING ROOM ON THE LOS ANGELES TIMES: In 1993 it was big and strong, its editions fat with ads and stories produced by a staff of some of the best and brightest journalists in their field. Now the paper looked like somebody who had been through chemo--thin, unsteady, and knowing the inevitable could only be held off for so long. (p. 160).