SALON: There might not be a direct link between the divisive mess that politics has become in Wisconsin — where Scott Walker won the right to remain governor despite governing well to the right of where Republicans have traditionally governed in that state — and the death of the great American newspaper, but both represent national trends that have so far disproportionately rocked the middle of the country, mainly for the worse…
This decline is actually the acceleration of a very, very long-term trend: Newspaper circulation per household peaked in the 1930s and 1940s (when many households received two a day!) and dropped steadily thereafter, basically tracking the rise of television. The afternoon paper was the first casualty. Shafer names one scholar who ascribes the collapse in part to the industry’s failure to attract the baby boomers. It’s true that home delivery of newspapers (an increasingly expensive luxury) is basically now something only old people who’ve always gotten the paper still do…
The polarization of the parties and radicalization of the GOP were both arguably inevitable results of our weird governing system and various long-term demographic trends. But the combination of a more right-wing conservative party and a dead newspaper culture has wreaked havoc on the local politics of Middle America… (more)
EDITOR: Every time we lift up a fat Intelligencer Journal New Era or Sunday News we give a sigh of relief. But when they are scant, as has been the occasion during these early summer days, we are concerned. Our sense is that we are safe in Lancaster for at least another decade.
