Is it a sign of the apocalypse when newspapers nationwide continue to see declining revenues and employee layoffs while more and more traffic for information (news, entertainment, weather, etc.) shifts to the Internet? Not really. It's just a sign of the times as modes of information transfer continue to change, but a breakneck speeds these days instead of decades.

Horseback couriers used to exchange news with villages and towns, taking weeks to get the information transferred by horseback. Then came the automated printing press and overnight air-based distribution, which made sure news on all subjects -- bad and good -- was delivered hours after the fact. Now, the Internet makes it possible for real-time news and information transfer. As soon as it happens, citizens with cameraphones, bloggers and journalists are on top of it, instantly. No more waiting.

What could possibly compete with this insatiable need for instant information gratification? Newspapers, while quaint, can't really do this. Publishers and newspaper owners clearly have agendas with editorials and other content, left and right. But if that's the only game in town, you're stuck with it. Not so for the Internet. On the Internet, information comes to you the way you want it -- with or without an agenda -- with the content you want, not that someone wants you to have.

Is the consumer in control? More and more, that answer is becoming a sturdy yes -- and the newspaper industry is learning this the hard way as it keeps trying to maintain an archaic status quo.

More interested in pop culture than in personal finance? No wonder this country is going down the tubes. The Internet is a series of tubes, by the way. Well, that aside, this article over at CNET describes how most American citizens still tune into traditional media in times of crisis.

That is, they turn to established media instead of blogs and other "edgy" forms of new media where the wisdom of crowds comes into play more than mass media's huge spectacles -- spectacles that need a few hundred pounds of Windex cleaning every day as well.

It's most likely old habits, as well as access -- there are televisions and radios just about everywhere, unlike Internet-connected computers. At the grocery store, the barber shop, and even the kids' daycare -- those two modes of communication are ubiquitous in everyday life. Although many of us consider the computer just as entrenched, the fact is that it's not everywhere traditional communications tools are.

Products like everyday mobile phones with high-speed data connections are changing the paradigm a little, although the user interface for those devices is far from useful for everyday folks.

With pop culture and entertainment at the top of the list when surveying citizens about news topics that interested them, politics and finance were not anywhere near the top (sadly). Instead of paying attention to pop culture tripe like Angelina and Brad, shouldn't we all be more enveloped in the way American lives are unfolding instead of the rich and famous?

That's another discussion for another day, but you get the idea. But, as I referenced earlier, as instant Internet access becomes an everyday tool everywhere -- like television and terrestrial radio -- things may change. Let's hope so for our sake.