Warren Buffet Says the Newspaper is Dead.

Rick Stanton - Creative Director/Stanton & Everybody Advertising + Design

This is not exactly an epiphany Warren old boy.
If you've been within 5 miles of the advertising business you knew this to be the case nearly 10 years ago.
All you had to do was look at rate cards and readership to see graph lines going in opposite directions at alarming speeds.
Several other things have lead to their demise besides unrealistic ad rates and crappy circulation, like responsible investigative journalism for example.
I remember fondly when reading a big city newspaper uncovered stories worth
being told by writers who knew how to do their job. Facts were substantiated
before articles hit the streets. They didn't make up news they reported it accurately. And the writing was engaging. Each top reporter's style reflected a unique voice. Besides a lack of journalism there is also an alarming lack of local articles. I assume picking up a story from AP means you can cut overhead by having fewer journalist.

This may be the picking of nits but it seems like there was hardly a typo
until Spell Check showed up. Today's Seattle Times had 5 typos on the first
page of main news alone. Now you could be thinking, this guy is trumpeting
the death of a media source and yet he still reads it?
Five words; New York Times Crossword Puzzle. I like the tactile quality of pen on paper. Yes, I said pen. I'm a very confident crossword puzzler. And then of course there is the Internet effect.
Not only does having immediate access to the world on a minute by minute basis render the morning paper irrelevant, the papers' own websites helped kill and or redirect readers. And to make matters worse the access to their sites has been free. The newspaper industry reminds me of people who smoke. How many times must they have heard, "If you don't stop doing what you're doing you're going to kill yourself." Thank goodness the New York Times Crossword Puzzle is available on line.
R.I.P.
More reading: http://finance.yahoo.com/insurance/article/107029/Business-Musings-From-Woodstock-for-Capitalists