The Pew Center has some graphs on the decline of newspapers. They broke a basic rule of metrology. Always put measurements into context. Know the baseline and measure in proportion to the baseline.
Pew’s graph of newspaper total circulation (brown line) seems to show that newspapers were starting to lose in 1990, when digital media and cable TV started to supply the appetite for ‘news when you want it.’
Numbers of this type MUST always be per capita, in proportion to the total or eligible population. I added a red line of population from the US census for the same period.
You can see that the newspapers were staying even (not growing) until 1975, then started to lose. This corresponds to my own experience with papers. I enjoyed them until somewhere around 1980 when papers gave up their unique advantage. They stopped describing crime accurately, and stopped accepting realistic classified ads. Before this shift, papers were the best source for local information. After the shift their unique skill was gone.
1975 is, of course, the key pivot point for pretty much everything including the earth’s magnetic field. Everything switched phase.
What happened to journalism in 1975? Watergate. All media decided that everything tainted by the R label must be demolished, and everything with the D label must be deified. All news must serve DNC, which is another way of saying Deepstate.
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Later contra: As I’ve mentioned before but forgot this time, local news is covered adequately by social media. Most cities have local-news Facebook groups, and the bigger places have Reddit sections as well. Everyone is a reporter in these groups, which means you have to be your own editor, ignoring the partisans and mechanical bots. Real reports still get through. A newspaper will always filter out the real reports, giving you only one partisan side.
Polistra's Mill 