SEATTLE — The debate is no longer confined to a few academics in distant universities. It is now a mainstream topic of discussion: How will the news of the future be distributed?

The jury is still out, but not completely. Increasingly, we are driven to believe that the future will be paperless. Some argue that the "paper" will be taken out of the "newspaper" within a few years. Their logic might have come across as far-fetched in the late 1990s, but it can't be dismissed in 2010.

Two American intellectuals have added their voices to the chorus of those predicting that print media won't continue to define the news much longer. In October 2009, Leonard Downie Jr., vice president at large and former executive editor of The Washington Post, and Michael Schudson, professor of communication at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, coauthored a 98-page paper titled "The Reconstruction of American Journalism."