WSJ via TPM (hat tip Sullivan):

The publisher of the Detroit Free Press, the country’s 20th largest paper by weekday circulation, is expected to announce next week that it will cease home delivery of the print edition of the newspaper on most days of the week, according to a person familiar with the company’s thinking.

25 replies on “Bad News”

  1. Funny, the milk man and ice man stopped showing up this morning as well…and the coal bin out back hasn’t been filled by the fellow who makes the rounds with his oxen…

  8. It would help if those who mourn the passing of daily papers could give us some examples of what we have now that we won’t without big bundles of newsprint landing on peoples’ doorsteps.

  12. Dear Luke @8:

    Although the interwebs are a series of giant tubes that provide infinite amounts of space for information, I won’t fill too much of it explaining the benefits of newspapers on society.

    Instead, I’ll make it really simple: Advertisers pay newspapers, which in turn pay journalists to go out and (among many other things) call bullshit on the liars, thieves and pompous asses that take your money, fail to protect your health and possessions, and/or endanger your life.

    This high-quality watchdog journalism takes a lot of people and a lot of time to produce.

    Problem is, advertisers don’t pay much for ads on the internet. On top of that, they can’t afford to advertise as much in this economy. That means newspapers can’t pay journalists. That means the stories that are BEGGING to be investigated (here’s one off the top of my head: how our food comes from China packed with “protein”) can’t be.

    This is an oversimplification, of course. But if you assume you’ll get the same content online after printed newspapers go extinct, you’re making a pretty big leap. First the print edition dies, then the online version. Whole organizations are on life-support.

    And it’s starting to happen in Seattle.

    If you need more information, I’d be happy to provide it.

  13. @8:

    Most of the news you get on the Internet was originally published by a news organization. They have reporters aroumd the world – in Darfur, in Iraq, in Afghanistan -If they don’t go do it, who will? Bloggers? Hah!

  14. Pipe dream: a BBC/CBC style broadcast/online press fund channeled through PBS, drawing funds from licensing fees on people’s TV sets and computers, augmented by advertising where available.

    Fuck, I don’t know. It will be nasty to have it get shitty hard to find out what’s happening, just as events have begun to wake us.

  15. Nothing good happens in Michigan anymore.

    And the Free Press is our only good newspaper. Tripe like the Detroit News, Daily Tribune, and Ann Arbor News (where the ability to use spellcheck went to die) are still operational.

    Michigan is do depressing right now.

  17. @16 It was Republican rule in Wash. D.C. that lead to the economic disaster we now face. While I won’t dispute the fact that U.S. Auto makers were short sighted, if you look around you’ll notice short sightedness on almost everything from sub prime lending to over extended credit card loans to health care and infrastructure. Republican government is shortsighted. They started their rule by shorting all the things that save or invest for the future. That leaves an ever increasing burden on future generations in the hope that our economic engine will continue to generate wealth. Well guess again. It turns out if you don’t invest in the future but instead take from the future, the future burns your ass!

  18. 17
    Wince:
    The Democrats forced lenders to loan to unqualified homeowners and caused the credit meltdown.
    The Democrats took over Congress two years ago, which is when the current unpleasantness began.
    Here’s wishing Obama luck.
    There will be no one else to blame and no where to hide.

    2012 is going to be a good GOP year.
    Booking my DC hotel for the inauguration now.

  19. @ 18,

    No, dear, the Republicans were in favor of deregulation. The democrats might have had Congress for the past 2 years but Republicans had it for 6 years of President Bush. Republicans held congress during the Clinton administration…And before Bill Clinton, Republicans held the White House and Congress.

    You can’t revise history to make this a Democrat mess, this one belongs solely to the Republicans.

    p.s. Nobody made lenders give money to poor (ie brown) people or anyone they didn’t want to…they lent money because they thought they could make a killing and then dump the debt on some other suckers. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB12215656… Which they did.

  21. Democrats forced lenders to extend credit to “disadvantaged” borrowers in the name of “fairness”.
    Evidently fairness doesn’t come cheap.

  22. Democrats forced lenders to extend credit to “disadvantaged” borrowers in the name of “fairness”.

    Yep, it wasn’t rich people who got us into this mess – it was the poor.

    Fucking retard.

  24. re#23
    Mr Retard;
    I appreciate your brilliant and incisive analysis of the economic dilemma our nation faces.
    I could use a mind likes yours in my Administration.
    Best of all, I haven’t met my quota for fucking retards yet, either.
    Please come work for the new Administration in Washington DC.
    Sincerely,
    Baruk Obama

  25. @18: The urban legend that Democrats forced banks to lend to disadvantaged borrowers is a fascinating tale, but none of the Republicans on this thread have yet posted a link to any such law or policy–or even to a story about it.

    Yep, blame Republican deregulation again.

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