Originally Posted by
medford
I think we've evolved past that. The biggest challenge facing newspapers is that they are no longer anywhere close to the fastest source of news. Think about the 3 major US tragedies in the last 75ish years. Pearl Harbor, while not alive at the time, I imagine most people heard radio reports, but if you were news conscience, you were sure to pick up the paper the next day to read about it. JFK, word got out a little quicker, and you could turn into TV to follow the reports along, but the newspaper was still worthy of reading the next day. 911, you found out almost instantly, all over the radio and you could turn into any TV station and catch live reporting, all day long, for weeks, you may have bought a paper, but it wasn't going to tell you much you didn't already know.
Now think about today, thru twitter or other social media you get the news even quicker, the internet is even bigger than it was in 2001, you can watch live coverage from your phone in most of the US. If something on the level of those 3 tragedies should break, the traditional news paper isn't going to be anywhere close to ground breaking, and most don't have the resources to do any sort of in depth investigation/reporting on the subject.
And that is just major stories that are "must know about", what about everything else? If its national, take your pick, Fox News, MSNBC, CNN you can get coverage anywhere any time. Cruise the web and you can pick up a blog about the subject from wherever your preference. So now that the national stuff is covered, what about the local stuff? More and more often, you'll get more information from various blogs/message boards on local stuff than you will from a newspaper. Who has better coverage on Reds Games, Redszone or the Enquirer? Sure the Enquirer can get you into the clubhouse and talk directly with the players, but with every game being broadcast, Redszone has significantly more voices that can add to the narrative of how the Reds are performing. You get much better analysis here than you'll find anywhere else (though you often have to shift thru the minutia) Want local HS football schools, there are sites that put up the scores for all the games across the state of OH each weekend. Truth is, if you really care about a HS football score, you probably only care about 1 or 2 schools, and I'll bet you can find the student paper online from most high schools in the country these days.
Really, when it comes down to it, the local papers are really only left with niche markets to draw attention to, and generally those niche markets are not going to generate enough diverse interest long term. Having lost classified revenue from ebay, etc... I think its going to be tough for most papers to survive.