Even after all these years of declining circulation numbers, declining revenues, and increased layoffs and page count cuts, most people in newspapers still don't understand what's happening to printed newspapers. Instead, they wait for a magical Web business model to rake in enough dough and become savior to their journalism.

For evidence, just read the latest New York Times Op-Ed piece by Timothy Egan, in which he claims there's nothing wrong with newspapers, except their Web sites don't make enough money. After all, newspaper Web sites have huge audiences but can't support the broadsheet's budget, he notes.

That's where Egan fails to understand reality. It's not the job of the Web site to pay the expenses of the printed newspaper. The newspaper must pay its own expenses using its own revenue. The cuts that Egan laments are proof the printed newspaper can no longer afford infinite pages and sections.

The problem is not that the Web is making too little revenue. The problem is the printed version costs too much. In a twist of selective cognition, Egan points to the success of online-only news purveyors such as the Huffington Post and cries foul.

"There’s plenty of gossip, political spin and original insight on sites like the Drudge Report or The Huffington Post — even though they are built on the backs of the wire services and other factories of honest fact-gathering. One day soon these Web info-slingers will find that you can’t produce journalism without journalists."

He's right about one thing. When newspapers lay off even more reporters, then Drudge and Huffington will begin creating their own reporting staffs to supplement the loss of stories. In fact, that's already happening. Huffington Post recently began hiring reporters, and its founder says she plans to hire more.

Huffington and Drudge entered the journalism business at the low-end without paying millions for printing and distribution. That advantage lowered the barrier of entry to the market, only newspapers never truly considered them worthy competitors. Judging from Egan's opinions, it seems they still don't.

Since newspapers haven't figured this out by now, it seems they never will. So resign yourselves to a future where the likes of the Huffington Post and Drudge Report, and MSN and Yahoo, hire reporting staffs the size of the New York Times or larger.

And you know what that means for newspapers . . . just ask Egan: "What started as layoffs and buyouts is edging toward closures and bankruptcies."