At the time they killed it, many newspapers were still using a lot of B&W paper. We couldn't understand why they dropped it.
In 2005? Really? You must be thinking of some very, very, very small newspapers or they were run by Luddites (I was interning with a 1,000 circulation weekly in technologically-impaired Bumblefork, USA at the time, and even they were digital). I had to do some paste-up layout even (physically waxing a piece of paper and then sticking it to a page to be photographed for the presses), and the photos I pasted up were laser printer copies of digital files.
At later papers where I worked (up until this summer), I made a habit of checking out the old darkroom supplies. I have yet to see a chemical or roll of film (bulk or otherwise) with an expiration date later than 2001 (which means they were made in the '90s). BTW, I wasn't working for the NY Times, but very small daily newspapers (less than 5,000 daily circulation). Film died there more than 10 years ago.
Besides, Kodak B&W paper kind of sucked, anyway. I like Kodak film. I like Kodak chemicals. I just thought Ilford made better paper. No skin off my nose when they didn't want to cater to hobbyists and college students (their paper was more expensive, anyway).
I seem to remember a lot of yelling over how film was dead when the Nikon D1 came out in 1999 (A DSLR that you can carry and use, with a review screen, too!), as well as the Canon 1Ds (first full-frame, 11mp camera which was "better" than film, thus spoketh Pop Photo at the time) and the Digital Rebel (first DSLR under $1,000)... Hmm... I don't think it's dead yet.
