Why Newspapers Are Dying

I've read a lot of analyses of why local newspapers are having such a rough time selling papers these days. There are a lot of reasons, and I think this post makes most of them seem dead obvious. As usual, the culprit is rapacious big business, Wall Street, and consolidation. His summary:

Now the tailspin continues, and the damage to our democracy is hard to overstate. It's no coincidence that the United States stumbled into Iraq and is paralyzed before serious challenges at home and abroad at precisely the moment when real journalism is besieged. It almost might make the conspiracy minded think there was a grand plan to keep us dumb.

(emphasis mine)