A herd of television reporters is gathered around the corner of Fifth and Mission streets. The scene seems so urgent, and the crowd seems so dense, that it's easy to assume that someone's died and these reporters are just trying to catch every sensational aspect of the scene. However, it's not so much someone as it is something that's slowly been dying. The victim is a San Francisco institution--the Bay Area's biggest daily newspaper. The San Francisco Chronicle is in some major trouble, but many are hoping that it doesn't go down without a fight.

"Newspapers might be old fashioned, but are still a huge part of our lives (or at least a small part of our lives). Just because we're on the Internet all day doesn't mean we don't love our newspapers," reads the description for the Save the San Francisco Chronicle Facebook group. The group is over three thousand members strong and filled with young people who--contrary to popular belief--do care about their newspapers.

"The idea of the group was to both have people realize that the Chronicle is a great American newspaper--it would be a huge loss to Northern California if it were to go out of business--and to also start the conversation of what newspaper will look like in 2009 and beyond," says group founder Bill Fishkin, a concerned Bay Area resident.

According to the Chronicle's article about its own possible demise, written as a staff report, the newspaper "and its largest union have reached a tentative agreement on contract concessions that the company says are essential for saving the newspaper."

However, in recent articles, the Hearst Corporation has announced that "if it could not get concessions from its key unions within 'weeks' and achieve major staff reductions, it would be forced to sell or close the 144-year-old newspaper." So the newspaper's future, or at the least chances of remaining unchanged, aren't so clear.

"We're living in a Twitter world; we're used to receiving our news in 140 characters or less," says former Chronicle reporter and soon-to-be SF State journalism graduate Duffy Jennings.

The paper has been around since 1865, and although many others exist, it is arguably the most influential in the entire Bay Area. It is the source of news for many smaller news outlets that use it to understand what's going on in San Francisco. But just like anything else suffering in this economy, in the end, the newspaper industry is a business.

"There's a romantic side of journalism, and then there's the business side. And both sides are failing," says current Chronicle reporter Delfin Vigil.

Not everyone is just sitting around, missing that romantic side of the business; some reporters are becoming the news they're so used to observing. Vigil, a reporter who covers arts and events for the paper, recently took out an ad in the San Francisco Examiner pleading the case that there are still people willing to fight for something they love: newspaper writers--the men and women behind every word.

Unfortunately, this is nothing new. It is only one example of a bigger, unfortunate trend spreading across the United States. Websites like newspaperdeathwatch.com keep a tally of the increasing number of newspapers that close or downsize everyday. Like everything else, print media is finding it hard to compete with the convenience,
immediacy, and diversity found on the Internet.

The fight to save the Chronicle is not as exciting as rescuing other Bay Area staples like Halloween in the Castro or Bay to Breakers, but many agree that it is something worth shouting about. Panels have been organized and discussions have been had, but they have primarily been concentrated in the community of reporters, editors and professors. Is there anyone or anything that can really save a dying industry and such an important part of San Francisco?

If this is just like any funeral, then some eulogies are in order.

"[The San Francisco Chronicle's legacy] should not be the way it died; it should be the way it lived. [It] will live as a unique icon of San Francisco history. San Francisco is a really unique city, a newspaper should reflect that, and lately it hasn't," says Jennings.