...[R]eaders of the Boston Globe can now read the Washington Post or the Guardian right there on the internets. Newspapers from different regions didn't compete with each other 30 years ago. They do today. They didn't compete with Craigslist 30 years ago. They do today. Large regional newspapers once had near-monopolies over both news and advertising in a region. They've lost both. That's why they're failing. Not bad management.
It seems to me that each time you have a technological advancement in how information is distributed, a couple of familiar things happen: the amount of content increases dramatically; publishing becomes more democratic; the overall quality of content decreases dramatically; people fret about losing the benefits of the old technology; existing information outlets that rely on the older technology die off or consolidate. I guess it took a recession to really expose this process with regards to the internet supplanting newspapers.
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