Newspapers: The death watch

In an exceedingly lengthy two-part article — which we nonetheless recommend — Bill Wyman writes a compelling analysis of the crisis impacting the newspaper industry. In Five key reasons why newspapers are failing, he discusses lack of content, the driving force of advertising for which news merely provides the packaging, and the new model of expanded white space, or “air,” which Wyman likens to the trailblazing purveyors of air infused bread, popcorn and ice cream.

The old credo of never offending the reader, who reliably kept the entire mechanism cha-chinging, is also gone — as readers of the local daily are indisputably aware.

Part Two, titled Aren’t reporters partly to blame? concludes with his list of nine things he’d do if he were running a chain of papers. They aren’t half bad ideas.  We especially like number 9.

Bill Wyman is a Phoenix-based writer with a leftward slant evident in his Berkeley/NPR/Slate/Salon background. He is a cultural critic and author of the blog Hitsville.