We surely all had the same question upon reading the story last week that real-estate developer Jorge Perez and sugar magnate Alfonso Fanjul have had talks to buy The Miami Herald. Given the sad economics of newspapers today, what would be their motive to own this one?

I don't have the answer, but I have been at Harvard University this semester at the Shorenstein Center for the Press, Politics and Public Policy thinking about how 21st-century technology may be driving U.S. media back to a 19th-century business model. What I didn't expect, in a jolt of double irony, is that The Miami Herald itself might be the first major paper to regress.

Newspapers were once so expensive to produce that many were subsidized and controlled by political parties or owners with an ideological or other bent to pursue. Then, technology -- in the form of the telegraph, Linotype machines, steam-driven presses and paper made from wood pulp -- dropped costs so much that by the end of the 19th century newspapers could be run profitably as independent businesses. The largest returns lie in selling to the most readers across many persuasions, making objectivity not just an ethic, but an economic virtue.

But what technology giveth, it can taketh way. The digital revolution has made websites, radio and cable television so much cheaper to produce that they have proliferated, segmenting the market and undercutting newspapers and traditional television news programs.

EYE ON OBJECTIVITY

I have no idea if Perez would subsidize The Miami Herald to defend his real-estate interests, or if the Fanjuls prize the paper so as to further their sugar or Republican or Cuban causes. Many in the blogosphere say it is so but have absolutely no proof. Certainly, similar things were said of Rupert Murdoch when he bought The Wall Street Journal last year. But while Murdoch has made many changes in that venerable newspaper, none have affected the objectivity of its excellent reporting. If anything, the Australian has opened the editorial pages to more varied voices.

To be sure, the Republic survived newspapers with a view. Democracies in Europe and other parts of the world also seem to be doing just fine despite a tradition of partisan media.

Instead of monopolies like The Miami Herald, these countries offer readers a wide selection of papers (and other media) identified with different political or economic currents. That there is not the resentment there that exists here of the mainstream media suggests that variety is good.

Here, meanwhile, blogs, talk radio and, increasingly, cable news have built a trend with a strong tailwind. They have become opinionated, like the U.S. media of long ago. The worst of all worlds, of course, would be a monopoly newspaper with a view that permeates its news columns. That hasn't happened yet. Still, newspapers themselves are going with the flow by enlisting ever more -- and more opinionated -- columnists who have broken free of the editorial pages and mix news and opinion in the news pages.

Yet, curiously, there are no agreed-upon journalistic rules of the road for these ''news columnists.'' In Europe and Latin America (yes, Latin America), the many great papers there still insist on accuracy and fairness, even while framing stories from their particular point of view. The creature of the news columnist hardly exists. Opinion is restricted mostly to the editorial pages.

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