I only get the Sunday paper. Our Gannett paper started sending us the Thursday paper free. I imagine the grocery stores forced that since their ads are in our Thursday paper. Anyhow, I was sitting on the patio in the spring sunshine sipping my coffee and reading the local news and thinking how pleasant it was, and how I missed having a morning paper.
SLAP! Back to reality, when I turned to the editorial page and there were THREE Washington Post columns, including one that (get this) suggested that Bush follow John F. Kennedy's example in the Cuban Missile Crisis and "think outside the box" like Kennedy did when he REMOVED THE MISSILES FROM TURKEY. I will NEVER take that paper daily again, and as soon as there is another place to get the Sunday ads, I will drop the Sunday issue, too.
Marple, you may can get the weekly ads emailed to you. Here in North Louisiana, you can get the big grocery chains (Brookshires, Super One, Kroger) to send them.
"Sooner or later they are going to have to go looking for more readers. Since they have all of the liberals, they will (if they want to stay in business) have to start providing better quality news and commentary, or start focussing more on local, non-political news. Either one is ok with me. I imagine most of them will stay in business, but their days of being the arbiters of public opinion are fast ending."
Too many of their elite leaders live an arrogant mythical land. Their corporate culture for decades has been one of lying to their readers, overcharging their advertisers based on cooked paid circulation numbers and a Semi God like feeling that Americans need them to mold our opinions and tell us how to vote. For this reason, the Tribune/La Slimes, NY Slimes, Washington Compost and other so called nation newspapers will continue to lose readers who buy their trash, and their ad revenues will plummet.
What will save them for awhile will be the income from their internet businesses and other businesses which don't focus on news. We see this obliquely mentioned in these quarterly excuses for earnings.
The local newspapers which shift to local news may survive. However, when their editorial page is filled with left wing venom, and their so called comic pages are filled with Doonesburry and similiar trash. They will find themselve faced with customers like you. Customers, ready to drop them.
With the internet, satellite radio news/commentary and cable tv, we really don't need the expensive and out of date fishwraps with old news. As you noted, your husband tries to read to you, something you saw on Free Republic days before. Also, the interaction of the news on FR and the Blogs is often more important than the news.
"Sooner or later they are going to have to go looking for more readers."
The newspaper industry has spent the past 30+ years agonizing over how they can get more readers, but nothing they've done has stopped the long, slow, steady slide. Producing content that doesn't insult conservative readers would help, but at this point it's probably too late for them to mend fences with potential conservative readers. Most of us gave up on them a long time ago. Of course they're so arrogant in their belief system they would never try it anyway.
The real problems they face are: 1. The ever-increasing array of leisure time activity options; 2. Less overall interest in current affairs among the public regardless of whether the coverage is biased or not, and 3. They are using a 19th century model to communicate information in the 21st century, and 4. They are having a hard time adapting to the changing composition and demands of their traditional advertising base. They can overcome #3 by accelerating their transition to the Internet. #1 is an irreversable trend and #2 might be overcome in the long run, but I don't see it changing any time soon. There is probably a solution to #4, but it will take more proactive and innovative thinking than the industry has shown themselves capable of in the past.