Traditionally, journalists tend to write obituaries following a death, not before. So it was rather bad taste to discuss the demise of one of our most ground-breaking newspapers before it even happened.
But there seems to be a curious glee in how some commentators are discussing the closure of The Independent. More worryingly, there's an astonishing lack of insight from so-called media experts.
More of them in a minute.
First, to the newspaper which I'm proud to say I have worked at and written for in the past. Among its staff are some of the most astute, talented and honourable people I've ever encountered, some of whom are friends.
But 30 years after its inspirational launch, when it was quite clearly the most radical national daily, it is now selling just 40,000 or so copies, a far cry from its 423,000 peak. I still read it every day and shall miss it but the truth is it is a product that lacks an identity.
Vigour, wit, attitude and vitality too. Out of all of these, I would suggest attitude is the most important - a newspaper needs to make you want to care, to sit up, to challenge the orthodoxy and our own ways of thinking. It needs to matter.
A quick glance at today's paper (Friday, February 12, 2016) shows it at its blandest worst, despite a smattering of wonderful journalism. Front and back covers that are dull and 'old' news, a leader page that vacillates, spreads without forceful images or headlines, columnists that don't provoke, unforgivably poor grammar and punctuation, a package that doesn't feel like a cohesive whole.
I still love it, of course. Like a first love who, whilst we may no longer enjoy intimacy, elicits profound emotions and loyalty within me. And now we'll never get the chance to rekindle our love.
The Independent's Russian owners finally closed the daily and Sunday titles because they've lost so much money and, instead, want to keep the content alive through a free website. That's free to access and, largely, free to write for - they don't usually pay for web-only journalism, no matter how good the content. Alexander Lebdev, whose fortune is estimated at more than $1 billion, handed control of the media assets to his publicity-loving son Evgeny and it never really worked.
I so hoped a knight in shining armour would arrive, if only to wipe the smug grins off its closest rival, the even more loss-making Guardian titles which suggested, with part accuracy, that the Internet is to blame for the impending redundancies. Its media expert, Jane Martinson, bemoans the paper's loss, highlighting the financial and circulation losses.
Yet she fails to mention that the paper she works for - part of a media company that is at the vanguard of a nonsensical business operation that gives content away for free no matter how damaging to profits or staff morale - is suffering the same catastrophic losses. It sells around 160,000 copies a day and has to save £54m in the next three years to survive. It will also, no doubt, welcome the left-leaning readership of the ailing Indy.
One might argue, in fact, that its decision to give content away has contributed to The Independent's problems. It has helped to assassinate its rival whilst laying it to rest with a warm embrace and pinning the blame on someone else.
Then, most egregiously, later in the pages of The Guardian appears a journalism professor, Brian Cathcart, whose absurd Hacked Off pressure group is trying to muzzle robust journalism by attempting to dictate its tone and content.
He enthusiastically wants to bury newspapers and insists the print product is as anachronistic as the horse-drawn carriage. He doesn't even consider papers an essential part of his (obviously poorly-prepared) lectures because he and the students don't 'see the point' of them. He clearly doesn't appreciate the irony of writing in a paid-for print paper how little the content in print papers matters. (Were you paid for the piece, Brian?)
He then concludes that 'good journalism' can survive if it's web-based. I'm not sure what 'good' means here. Does Brian think a witty piece about Beyonce's derrière can be good, or even a celebrity's confessional? Or is good what he and other academics deem it to be? Acres of turgid stuff on the EU.
Cathcart is wrong, of course. Newspapers will not all perish. 'Good' journalism will survive in all its myriad forms (including Beyoncé's booty) and people will pay for it because, for the intelligent public (that's most of it) free does not and never will mean good.
Publications like the Guardian arrogantly embarked on this grand giveaway project and now they're mourning the victims, without quite appreciating that, in fact, their experimental philosophy is to blame.
The sooner this era of free ends, the better it will be for journalism. To borrow The Independent's most effective slogan: the industry is frightened of paywalls and micropayments. It is. Are you?
