Out of print The death and life of the American newspaper

Abstract

Independent, publicly traded American newspapers have lost forty-two per cent of their market value in the past three years, according to the media entrepreneur Alan Mutter. Meanwhile, public trust in newspapers has been slipping at least as quickly as the bottom line. A recent study published by Sacred Heart University found that fewer than twenty per cent of Americans said they could believe "all or most" media reporting, a figure that has fallen from more than twenty-seven per cent just five years ago. "Less than one in five believe what they read in print," the 2007 "State of the News Media" report, issued by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, concluded.