As "survival of the fittest" becomes the newspaper industry's credo, the struggle to compete in this highly diverse and rapidly changing media marketplace has resulted in a decline in traditional journalistic standards in the interest of boosting profits.

       For nearly thirty years, the newspaper industry has seen its share of the information market decline. However, the drop in readership has never been as dramatic as in the past decade, especially among the demographic groups most needed to guarantee financial success. Between 1980 and 1990, the proportion of adults aged twenty-four to thirty-four who read any newspaper whatsoever fell from 56 to 51 percent. There was a commensurate drop among thirty-five to forty-four year olds, as the percentage of readers declined from 66 to 60 percent.*

       Further, Americans do not value newspapers as a source of information as much as they do other media. A national survey conducted by the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press in June 1992 revealed that only 20 percent of the public believed that newspapers were the best way to get news, compared to 70 percent who felt that way about television.

       This deterioration of the public's use and appreciation of newspapers has occurred simultaneously with a substantial reduction in the number of cities hosting competitive dailies and the virtual disappearance of the family-owned paper. Newspapers in monopoly markets can be quite profitable, prompting corporations to pay large sums for family businesses. According to the American Newspaper Association, there were fifty-seven media markets with two or more competitively owned newspapers in 1980. Today, there are fewer than thirty. Chains owned 60 percent of newspapers in 1980, but they now own over 75 percent. These trends are continuing.

       A NEW BREED OF NEWSPAPER