I really hope this doesn't happen …
The 1970s ushered in the era of the one-newspaper city as afternoon papers withered and died in a numbing succession through every downturn well into the 1980s.
Now, as we enter the end of the 21st century’s first decade, we could see the era of the no-newspaper city, according to Fitch Ratings.
[Fitch] is out with a gloomy prediction about the near future of media and entertainment – and it sees newspapers as the medium least like to weather a global recession that’s going to turn “severe” in 2009 with an advertising climate even more harsh than the industry’s painful experience during 2001-02.
“Fitch believes more newspapers and newspaper groups will default, be shut down and be liquidated in 2009 and several cities could go without a daily print newspaper by 2010,” the Chicago-based credit ratings firm said in a report on the outlook for U.S. media and entertainment.
The per-capita readership of dailies in the States has been plummeting for years. I suspect this would be inevitable even if there were no impending (depr/rec)ession to blame – it'll just be faster now.
In my personal experience, here at home it seems entirely normal to sit around and read the paper. You expect quality journalism, and no one is surprised you're reading it. In the USA, neither of those things seem to be true. I'll save the rant on American news media for another day though. The relevant point for today: very few Americans will mourn their local daily.
Well, if that's true, one can certainly appreciate the environmental impact that will have. How many trees does it take to print a Newspaper?