When we’re putting the paper together late at night, or, in truth, early in the morning, sometimes we’ll head to the gas station for some Dunkin’ Donuts and sanity.

If it’s late enough when we walk in, with the barely-awake or the just recently-sober, the morning dailies will already be out: the Press & Sun-Bulletin, and the early editions of the New York City tabloids.

Repeatedly over the last year there would be similar headlines all pointing to the same story: the decay of print journalism.

The paper in this city, formerly indispensable, is closing its doors; or the paper in that city is shrinking its size and printing only five days a week.

As you can imagine, it’s depressing to read about the demise of newspapers while you’re trying to put one of your own together.

My intent, when I walked into Pipe Dream for the first time almost four years ago, was never to get this involved. I just wanted to write about the Mets.

If that was the case, Pipe Dream’s sports editor at the time told me, his intent would be to show me the door. I found it easily.

I came back eventually, not only as a sports writer, but an assistant sports editor and editor in chief. If you think about it, though, the stories that have passed through our pages in the past years have been a lot more interesting than what the Mets, who know only how to lose painfully, could have provided.

Binghamton, as a city and a school, has received an unprecedented amount of national attention for a run-of-the-mill, run-down city: A beating last May sparked an international incident, our basketball team had the honor of losing to Duke in the Big Dance, a man walked into a Downtown building and killed 13 last month.

Even on a local level, it’s been wild: Food-service employees were in danger of losing health care, our student government has proved that it is truly inept and student housing in the city could see drastic changes.

It’s one of the most fascinating times in the history of Binghamton, and, globally, in the history of journalism on a whole.

But there is still no clear path for newspapers to lift themselves out of their current slump, assuming such a path even exists. I don’t leave my editorship at Pipe Dream believing I know the answer any better than the 50-year-old who just got laid off from a mid-sized daily he worked at for the last 25 years.

I leave knowing only how essential journalism is, and how worthwhile the runs to Dunkin’ Donuts have been.