Kos is kidding himself: In the unlikely and tragic event that every single newspaper went out of business today, we'd have little problem replacing them as a source of information. Sure you would. Here's the problem with his metric: Just because a link from his survey didn't lead to a documented primary or secondary newspaper source, that doesn't mean stories didn't stem from original newspaper reporting. Many online and broadcast outlets poach the news from newspapers without attribution. Daily newspaper organizations do much of the journalistic grunt work, which pundits, bloggers, television anchors, online journalists, trade reporters, government officials, etc., rely on. That's just plain fact.
