My local newspaper is no longer available in my small town

[MineralMan]

4. It's very hard these days to have a profitable newspaper.

Even in cities. Here in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, Minneapolis and Saint Paul have their own newspapers. How long that will last I do not know.

What I do know is that I live in a townhome development with 32 units in it. Only I and one other unit subscribes to the Minnesota Star Tribune. 2 out of 32. While that's a small sample, I think it reflects how things are going for newspapers.

I understand, too. Everything in the morning paper, which I go through each morning, was covered by Internet and TV news the day before. You get more details in the paper, but most people do not take the time to sit and read the entire paper.

There are far fewer ads in the paper now than in past years, too. All of the advertising has moved to other media, pretty much. No car dealer ads. No supermarket ads. Not many ads at all. Where does the paper make a profit?

So, the number of pages each day has gone down. The number of reporters has decreased. There are fewer local stories, and almost no investigative reporting.

One by one, subscribers are simply dropping out.