Today is a watershed day for the media but not in a good way. In Colorado, in what is the surest sign of a very troubled industry, the 150-year-old Rocky Mountain News has closed its doors. Throughout the nation — from Philadelphia to San Francisco — newspapers are facing extinction.

In New York, the so-called media capital of the world, Newsday, the Cablevision-owned, Long Island-based daily, is in trouble. The paper’s parent company had to take a $404.2 million write-down on Newsday after the paper, according to the AP, “recorded an operating loss of $407.6 million on $107.1 million in revenue.”

In light of this dire financial situation, Newsday is planning to charge for all online access to the paper. Facing a highly competitive online world that hasn’t matured economically, this move could be the deathknell for Long Island’s own paper.

PaidContent.org, the industry site for online content, had more about Newsday’s decision and what it might mean for their business model:

While financial pubs like WSJ.com and FT.com have been able to get away with asking readers to cough up subscription fees because business professionals are more willing to pay for specialized business news, the thought of a general newspaper doing so when so much is free is largely considered dubious. Still, the challenges newspapers are dealing with leaves them little choice but to try to get money directly from users.

Newsosaur’s Alan D. Mutter, told me he believes Newsday has a shot, but within limits. “Yes, I think they can start charging for web content. More and more publishers will, because they can’t afford to produce content without doing so. You can’t charge for sports scores, stock prices or generic breaking news. The key will be providing content that is valuable and exclusive.”

Basically, Newsday is banking on more revenue through paid subscribers than they could generate through advertising money on a higher-trafficked but still free site. I think this could work if they keep their extensive blogs free.

On the baseball front, it’s hard to consider this good news, and while RAB has contributed content to the paper’s Yankee blog, it would be tough to see the paper hide its daily work behind a paid wall. Gone would be the words of Wallace Matthews, Ken Davidoff and Kat O’Brien. If the free blog posts live on though, Newsday can still drive daily visitors to its site for dynamic content, and it can maintain its place in the sports media world. No matter the outcome, though, it’s tough out there for a newspaper.

For the past three years I’ve subscribed to MLB.tv, and this year shouldn’t be any different. The $120 per year has always paid for itself in terms of entertainment dollars per hour, and now that they’ve lowered the price to $110, that goes even more so. No, I can’t watch Yankees games on it, but I can watch the Yanks on TV and have another game in front of me on my monitor. Or, if I’m feeling really ambitious, I can hook up my second monitor, allowing me to watch the Yanks, watch another game, and comment on the game thread.

As Brad Stone of the New York Times notes, there are a few upgrades to the MLB.tv package this year. It sounds like they’re going for a Netflix streaming system, rather than having the user select a speed: “Technology by Swarmcast, a content delivery network with headquarters in Minneapolis and Tokyo, will help the league determine the speed of a fan’s Internet connection and adjust the quality of the video accordingly.” So if we’re somewhere between the 800K and 1.5MB quality, we’ll get something in the middle, not the lesser of the two.

My favorite upgrade is that you can now overlay radio broadcasters on the TV feed. Sick of Kay? Listen to Sterling. Sick of them both? Listen to the out of town radio announcer. I’m not sure how widely used this feature will be, but it does raise the possibility of a feature I’ve been pondering for a while.

Why not really open up the platform? Allow users to start their own announcing channels. An individual or group could enter a special room, kind of like our live chats, where they can provide their own play by play and color commentary. Other users can then overlay that rather than a mainstream broadcaster. I can see this not only being a fun feature for fans, but something that could drum up some more interest in the MLB.tv service. Most people do not want to watch baseball on their computers, but I’m sure a number would give it a shot if they either got to call the game themselves, or if they got to listen to a less insufferable commentator.

On the technical end, the downside is that the amateur commentators won’t have a view of the whole field like the guys in the booth do. That could be remedied, I suppose, by providing multiple camera angles to the amateur announcers. Would MLB and the broadcasters be willing to do that? I’m not sure, but I don’t see why not. In fact, that might be another feature in itself, the ability to watch the game from any camera in the park.

The question which will determine the feasibility of this: How will the media outlets react? They pay big bucks for the exclusive rights to broadcast games, and they might not be on board with amateur announcers cutting into the time of their professionals. MLB won’t want to compromise their relationships with these outlets, so if they say no, that could render this idea DOA. Still, it’s something which I think would bring more viewers to the MLB.tv platform and which would provide an opportunity for new voices to be found.

With the Winter Meetings wrapping up today, I just wanted to take a minute to thank everyone who has stopped by over the last days. On Monday, we set a new RAB record with a hair under 30,000 page views; on Tuesday, we topped that record and hit 34,000; on Wednesday, we blew past Tuesday’s total to end the day with over 42,000 page views. In other words, with Mike and Joe in Vegas covering the meetings and my running the wires in New York, we’ve pulled in over 108,000 page views in three days.

On a similar vein, Rob Neyer penned an interesting piece on his acceptance into the BBWAA. He’s certainly a bit ambivalent about inclusion, and one of his passages strikes a chord:

when I was hired to write for ESPN’s Web site in 1996, nobody told me to respect my elders. So I didn’t. If I thought Tracy Ringolsby was writing foolishly, I said so. If I thought Tom Verducci had crossed the line from intelligent analysis (of which he’s highly capable) into subjective dim-wittedness, I said so. And usually not with any surplus of grace. I believed then (and believe now) that my job, my responsibility, is to entertain and to educate, and that “not ruffling feathers” falls way, way down on the list somewhere.

That gets at the root of what we do. Yes, we’re fans covering our favorite team. But at the same time, we don’t give the Yanks and the papers that cover them a free pass. I cover the stadium issue quasi-fanatically because there’s been an utter lack of skeptical and accurate reporting. Joe takes issue with the New York Post because they more than push that line Neyer mentions. Mike delves into the minors because few others do. We like to hope that we bring something new and unique to the table, and I guess we’re doing something right.

So thank you to the regulars and thank you to the new folks who have stopped by. We’ll be here all winter and into the season as well. Make sure you come back.

Update by Joe (1:05 p.m. EST): I just talked to someone familiar with Davidoff’s situation (hah! I actually got to type that for once). He is not losing his job. Repeat: Not losing his job. Apparently, his title changed recently, which may have led to the speculation. It’s good to know that Davidoff’s job is safe, though. I was thinking about it this morning, and after considering everyone in the NYC sports media, I’m going to say he’s the best columnist out there. I’m glad he’ll continue to have an outlet for his writing.

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As free agent rumors swirled on Monday, two pillars of the traditional media took a big hit.

The Tribune Company, published of the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune as well as the owners of the Chicago Cubs, filed for bankruptcy protection while The New York Times Co. took out a $225 million home equity loan against its new building. Without that loan, The Times Co., publishers of The New York Times and part-owners of the Red Sox, would be facing a major cash-flow problem.

According to the major players, the Cubs and Red Sox are shielded from the economic downturn, and these moves shouldn’t impact the impending sale of the Cubs to someone who isn’t going to be Mark Cuban. But within the media, these developments were another sign of both economic unrest and deep-rooted problems with the business.

On a more local level, Newsday, a former Tribune holding sold to Cablevision in May, is facing its share of problems too, and this one will have an impact on how we receive some information. According to The Post, the Long Island-based daily will be slashing 100 jobs soon, and among those jobs lost may be Ken Davidoff’s.

With papers looking to save costs, columnists — even the good ones — that focus on national issues and not local teams often get the axe. The Post reports that Davidoff may be offered a lower-paid editorial position with the paper.

Davidoff has long been a well-respected reporter on the New York scene. He writes well; he’s engaging; and he does a great job with his Baseball Insider blog. But that’s why the media world works these days. The best reporters and columnists are the ones that are the highest paid, and they are often the first ones to go. Hopefully, Davidoff will stick around the city. His voice would be missed.