The Churn

Tumult is washing over the news media business, with staff being cast overboard as newsrooms shrink or disappear. Postmedia and some newspapers in Atlantic Canada are now publishing digital-only Monday editions. The two owners of the Toronto Star wound up in court, and then mediation, over a disagreement about the business and editorial models for a once money-spinning organization they purchased for $60 million; it might have been worth ten times that amount several decades ago. The investment giant Warren Buffett, who during childhood delivered papers door to door and remained emotionally attached to them for a long time, eventually sold his thirty-one dailies.

Several years ago, an excellent report from the Public Policy Forum, The Shattered Mirror, noted that in 1950 there were 102 newspapers sold per 100 Canadian households every day; the ratio was projected to be two per 100 homes in 2025. More recently, the Local News Research Project has found...