Vin Crosbie, one of the most successful media commentators and analysts, has returned to the fray after a year off and fired off a compelling essay on the decline of U.S. newspapers. He predicts that fully half will expire by the end of the next decade, starting with regional dailies and then progressing into the smaller local ones.
He diagnoses two major problems: the failure by newspapers to understand how the laws of supply and demand affected their publications decades ago, and the digression from local mandates.
Interestingly, he doesn't see either the accommodation of digital or the reluctance to enter the digital age as meaningful factors in either the salvation or diminution. His essay here is the first of a series.
