Circulation continues to decline steeply at almost all major city dailies. The only exceptions are USA Today and The Wall Street Journal.
Is it the Internet that is killing them? Well, it is a major part of the problem.
But another is the decline of effective literacy among the young and the even steeper decline in understanding of basic citizenship (what used to be called "civics") and economics. Newspapers can't rely anymore on their readers to possess a basic grasp of how Congress, the courts or administrative agencies work, let alone state and local governments. Stories therefore have to be sensationalized or dumbed down. Smart people then flee the papers for more intelligent coverage and the papers are stuck with a downscale readership.
Why don't young people understand civics? Because the schools either neglect the subject or downplay it or turn it into a left wing morality tale that ultimately is demoralizing.
And who has supported all these changes in schools? Often it is the local big city newspaper.
Then there is one other reason for readership decline, and that is growing media bias. If you can't count on straight news and editing, then you just give up on your local papers. Why waste your time with the views and opinions of some reporter who knows little but has a high opinion of himself? One reads a paper to get news--straight news, real news. When one finds that the real news is not found there, he stops using the paper as a resource.
For all of us who treasure newspapers--and sequential thought--it is sad to see all this happening. The end of newspapers isn't going to improve the sum knowledge and responsibility of the electorate.
Please, someone, give us newspapers that report the news in such a way that one can't discern the personal views of the reporters and editors. And use the editorial pages to campaign for better schooling in civics. You'll have to fight the teachers' union, but that, as they say, is another story.
