“The Robesonian editorial acknowledged that newsprint costs aren’t the only challenge it faces. Like other newspapers, it’s taken a hit from shifting reading habits that have led to a decline in advertisers and readers.”
The internet is wiping these obsolete rags from existence. Not President Trump.
The last time I picked up a Sunday paper (you can tell that it’s a declining habit with me)....I looked at the comics section. It was about 50-percent of what you would have gotten in 1977. Sunday comics have been dying for forty years.
“Like other newspapers, it’s taken a hit from shifting reading habits that have led to a decline in advertisers and readers.””
If newspapers were offering a product people wanted, there would be customers. The absence of customers, at the price being charged, suggests potential customers either do not like the product or can obtain higher value product somewhere else.
The demand for powdered wigs was much higher 250 years ago than it is today. The demand for parchment writing paper was much greater 200 years ago than today. The demand for outhouses was much greater 150 years ago than it is today. The demand for passenger rail transportation was much greater 100 years ago than it is today. The demand for men’s suits was much higher 50 years ago than today. The demand for pantyhose was much higher 30 years ago than today. The demand for flip phones was much higher 5 years ago than today. Like all of the products just mentioned newspapers are a product that no longer meet the needs of the marketplace.
Blaming Donald Trump or any other human for the market life of an industry as large as the newspaper business shows a complete lack of knowledge about economic and business cycles.