How bad is the paper biz?

Josh Marshall thinks the negative trends against it are all structural.

While not disagreeing with the degree of structural problems, I note that some of this is, in fact, cyclical:

Who are two of biggest advertisers in newspapers? Realtors and auto dealers. Need I say more?

That said, part of the decline in both those sectors is structural, too.

Realtors are going to Craigslist, and may increase that, since a federal court has ruled that Craig's is NOT a newspaper and therefore not subject to Fair Housing guidelines.

Also on the structural side, there's been plenty of stupid decisions, just like in the auto business.

The AP not adopting a subscription model for online AP stories more than a decade ago would be the biggest.

If that had been in place, member newspapers then could have comfortably charged for online subscriptions.

BUT, circ is only about 25 percent of revenue and ads the other 75. Craigslist would have cut in no matter what. (And, it'skilling alt-weeklies even worse.)

Back to structural problems.

The biggest has been the assumption by newspaper owners that they're "entitled" to 25 percent profit margins. Well, those days are long gone.

Take Sam Zell. Stupidest thing he's doing is keeping 'Trib Co. and selling the Cubs. He should keep the Cubs, and WGN, and sell the rest.