WITH THE START OF LAST YEAR, THE WORLD'S OLDEST DAILY GAZETTA (as in Sweden's Post-och Inrikes Tidningar, never mind its publishing nothing but legal and commercial notices as opposed to general news and information) "went virtual" after 361 years in print.

In other words, appearing only on the Information Stuporbahn.

Which, it turns out, will be the same way that The Capital Times of Madison, WI will be going @ the end of April after 90 years of afterlunch publication. (Well, not quite: They will still have a print presence every Wednesday [covering news, opinion and commentary] and Thursday [covering arts and amusements] as both an insert to the surviving Wisconsin State Journal and free stand-alone distribution in and around Wisconsin's capital city, and will still have an editorial presence in the State Journal's Sunday edition.)

Which, as Dave Zweifel of said Capital Times explained recently, was perhaps a painful, if necessary, decision to ensure the continued presence of alternative news and editorial voices in Mad City:

As I'm sure you can imagine, I've been answering phone calls, letters and e-mails the past couple of weeks about our decision to move The Capital Times at the end of April from a printed-on-newsprint six-day paper to a seven-day paper on the Web along with two substantial weekly editions on paper--one news and opinion, the other entertainment and lifestyle.

It's difficult for some folks to understand how we could make a decision that will take away a printed newspaper they have trusted and enjoyed, some for more than 60 years.

Let me share a story that came out of Albuquerque, N.M., just last month that might contain a clue to the dilemma we faced.

The Albuquerque Tribune, which has been published for 86 years, announced it was shutting down as of Feb. 23. The Tribune, an afternoon paper, has been in a joint operating agreement with the morning Albuquerque Journal, an arrangement quite similar to the one we have here in Madison with the Wisconsin State Journal and Lee Enterprises.

The announcement revealed that the Tribune's circulation had dipped to 9,600 in a metropolitan area with a population of more than 500,000. As recently as 1988, 42,000 homes got the newspaper.

The Tribune was no slouch of a paper. It won the Pulitzer Prize as recently as 1994 and was a finalist for another one in 1996. Its staff of 38 has continued to win state and national awards since.

The Albuquerque paper was just the most recent example of what's happened to afternoon papers over the past 30 years. Some of us were able to weather the storm, but as the Internet took hold, the handwriting was on the wall.

We had a choice. We could have continued to do things like we've always done and eventually suffered the fate of the Albuquerque Tribune and all the others and let The Capital Times slowly fade away, forever stilling its progressive voice and what we've meant to the Madison area and Wisconsin for roughly 90 years.

Or we could embrace the new technology, reposition ourselves on a medium that has captured millions, and head off into a future that can keep The Capital Times alive for a long time to come.

That's the goal we've set for ourselves, and I hope you will all come along for what should be an exciting ride.

No doubt something which the publishers of faltering daily or weekly gazettas ought to ponder: "Going virtual."

Even if (especially so in the case of rural weeklies) it sometimes requires embracing the collaborative weblog approach to stay afloat--even for the "locals" as are still a staple of many small-town weekly papers. And which, come to think of it, could be a good way for someone to keep alive such weeklies as may no longer be published, but are still fondly remembered; the Hokah Chief down in Your Correspondent's "home patch," as it were, serves as a likely example.

Published from 1855 until 1952, the Chief gained particular fame and attention in its last 40 years of publication (1912-52) under the legendary Herbert Wheaton, who often wrote under such pen names as "Father Ivonoff," "Aunt Jemima," "Hen Peck," "Seldom Seen," "Rube Ellick" and "Ole Vindblo" to the point where, @ times, the Chief had press runs of as many as 10,000 copies (including a substantial circulation in nearby LaCrosse, Wisconsin) and subscribers in every state--not to mention some American visitors in inter-war Europe reportedly receiving copies of the Chief @ the leading hotels.

And this from a rather small community in the Root River Valley of southeast Minnesota!

(Only to be done in by advancing age on Mr. Wheaton's part and an inability to find good help to keep the enterprise going, prompting him to end publication in early 1952, passing away not long afterwards.)

You never can tell....

(But then again, let me know if anybody has designs on reviving the Hokah Chief concept in blog form. I'll be happy to swap links.)