But no one more than reporters who cover the media, and their fixation on declaring various media, including their own, dead. Media reporting often boils down to a perpetual murder suicide, blogs killing print, print killing blogs, online video killing broadcast, print killing itself, blogs killing themselves, what have you. The aggregate yields quite a body count.

A couple of interesting one ways and others:

• The Economist declares blogging a dying medium
• Cory Doctorow rebuts in The Guardian

In medicine, declaring death has requires specific conditions. The doctor determines if a patient has a pulse, if the patient is breathing, and if there is brain function. All three must be absent. In journalism, it’s just a performative speech act, or at least one that wishes it were.