The death of newspapers

I don't like to write about work, but I don't mind riffing on my industry. Earlier this week, the New York Times wrote a story about an precipitous drop in ad revenue for newspapers in February. The company that signs my paychecks lost nearly 4 percent in year-over-year comparisons, while its flagship paper watched ad revenue slip by 14 percent. Ouch. The Gray Lady herself lost 6 percent and Mother Tribune lost 5 percent.
It was bound to happen with the steady slide of paid circulation. The first time I worked at my newspaper, it's circulation was 73,000; that's down to 60,000 last year. And though it's devastating to any corporation to lose revenue, the one thing that keeps getting buried in the discussion about the impending doom of newspapers is this: "While many newspapers still have healthy profit margins, their costs are up and ad revenue is down."
There you have it, folks. Newspapers still make money, by the truckload. No, not as much as they used to, but 20 percent profit is pretty sweet. Yes, we've got to change just about everything about ourselves to survive in the "new media" environment. But this hand-wringing about the industry's financial viability is really just a bunch of b.s.