So are the days
of purple tuxes

Dave Barry, whose column ran in the Miami Herald for more than 20 years, told reporter C.W. Nevius of the San Francisco Chronicle that newspapers are dead. "The era of the writer in the newspaper was in the '70s and '80s," Barry said, "when newspapers were making money no matter what. They'd send somebody off to Fiji for a story. If you knew you had somebody good, you'd just send them. You knew they'd come up with something."

Barry's decision to end his column in the Herald was based not on his lack of faith in the newspaper industry, he said, but he has grave doubts about the industry's future - and it is clear, he said, that the future is digital.

Nevius offers a step-by-step plan of action for writers in the newspaper business, based on Barry's life: write a column, win the Pulitzer Prize (Barry's was in 1988, for commentary), write 25 best-sellers, have a television sit-com based on your life ("Dave's World" on CBS) and then move into blogs and podcasting.