Kathleen Parker in The Washington Post:
“The biggest challenge facing America’s struggling newspaper industry may not be the high cost of newsprint or lost ad revenue, but ignorance stoked by drive-by punditry.
“Drive-by pundits are non-journalists who have been demonizing the media for the past 20 years or so and who blame the current news crisis on bias.
“There is surely room for media criticism, and a few bad actors in recent years have badly frayed public trust. And, yes, some newspapers are more liberal than their readership and do a lousy job of concealing it.
“But the greater truth is that newspaper reporters, editors and institutions are responsible for the boots-on-the-ground grub work that produces the news stories and performs the government watchdog role so crucial to a democratic republic. Unfortunately, the chorus of media bashing from certain quarters has succeeded in convincing many Americans that they don’t need newspapers.”
Read the full article: Frayed thread in a free society
IJR 
There are more current ways to get news. TV and the Internet. Only those who want to know more will read the newspaper the next morning. And how many of us want to do that?