Well, death spirals can happen, but turnaround / reform can also happen. It usually needs good leadership though.
Sure, they have competitors, but what are they competing on? In terms of what’s going on in the US right now, one story is that newspapers used to be nice and profitable, which created room for journalists to pursue high-minded ideals related to objectivity, fairness, investigative reporting, etc. But since Google/Craigslist took most of their ad revenue, they’ve had to shrink a bunch, and the new business environment leaves less room for journalists to pursue those high-minded ideals. Instead they’re forced to write clickbait and/or pander to a particular ideological group to get subscriptions. Less sophisticated reporting/analysis means less sophisticated voting means less sophisticated politicians who aren’t as capable of reforming whatever government department is currently most in need of reform (or, less sophisticated accountability means they do a worse job).
Well, death spirals can happen, but turnaround / reform can also happen. It usually needs good leadership though.
Sure, they have competitors, but what are they competing on? In terms of what’s going on in the US right now, one story is that newspapers used to be nice and profitable, which created room for journalists to pursue high-minded ideals related to objectivity, fairness, investigative reporting, etc. But since Google/Craigslist took most of their ad revenue, they’ve had to shrink a bunch, and the new business environment leaves less room for journalists to pursue those high-minded ideals. Instead they’re forced to write clickbait and/or pander to a particular ideological group to get subscriptions. Less sophisticated reporting/analysis means less sophisticated voting means less sophisticated politicians who aren’t as capable of reforming whatever government department is currently most in need of reform (or, less sophisticated accountability means they do a worse job).