He reads the paper mostly online and through Twitter.

All of this helps explain why there was an air of inevitability about the news on Monday that the organization was laying off half its editorial staff.

Once upon a time, The Daily News sold more than two million papers a day. Now its circulation is only about a tenth of that, and the paper’s non-hometown owner, the Chicago-based media company Tronc, which bought the paper last year, does not have the patience for non-profitability that the prior owner, Mortimer B. Zuckerman, did.

[Read more about why The Daily News laid off half its staff.]

At a cultural moment when the very idea of New York City as a hometown is quickly dissolving, and when most people get their news from some sort of glowing screen, the thirst for local ink is not what it used to be.

And those who do crave hard-hitting coverage that holds officials accountable for the state of the city were not pleased to hear about the layoffs.

“You need those old-school people because they know what they’re doing,” Rosanne Nunziata, a manager at the New Apollo Diner in Downtown Brooklyn, said of The Daily News’s staff of veteran shoe-leather reporters, many of whom are now pounding the pavement in search of employment. “They know how to sneak in and get their stories, and know how to get witnesses to talk and do their thing.”