One of the most talented photographers the hometown paper ever hired had to come in the back door, through the web when the web was the crude and rude cousin of the staid and serious print edition. He was one smart kid, though, because he worked the soft sections like nobody’s business, getting assignments to do anything the other guys already ensconced in their velvet coffins were too comfortable to bother with, and doing them much better. The surest sign of his brilliance is that he managed to get hired on staff, with all those once-lavish benefits, but did not stick around to molder in the velvet. So when he throws out advice, you would think newspapers would listen. He has a long screed up in cyberspace about new media, and one thing he despairs over is a newspaper sending out videographers to cover car crashes simply because those generate the most hits online. What does it profit a publication to attract mega-traffic and suffer the loss of its own soul? Hmmm. Nestle not buying cookie ads? Might be time to review another strip joint. . . .