I read Gawker pretty regularly and lately they've been reporting on the decline of the American newspapers. It's not unlikely that a lot of small-town - and maybe even some big-city - newspapers will fold in the current economic climate. Advertising is down - way down - and newspapers are cutting staff deeply. Will we perhaps wind up with just a handful of newspapers that are distributed regionally or even nationally like USA Today? Could be.
I've seen one interesting report, repeated on several sites such as Carolina Naturally, that the French are experiencing similar problems. In order to battle this problem, French President Sarkozy is going to give free, one-year newspaper subscriptions to 18-year-olds. His actions will add subscriptions to the newspapers, but will hopefully also encourage younger readers to take up the newspapers once their free subscriptions have run out.
Some folks have ridiculed this, but I think it's a pretty clever idea that's at least worth a try.
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