Newspapers are struggling to merely retain the (fewer and fewer) readers they have left – especially readers that advertisers covet: the 24-50ish crowd.  More and more people are tired of the biased "reporting".  Reporters might as well be paid Democrat operatives with bylines.

Which has led younger folks to stop buying newspapers – or even reading them.  In fact, young folks in today's world scarcely ever pick up a newspaper.  That's great if you're selling Dulcolax or Depends.  It's not so great it your company's target audience is folks under 50.

Advertisers are reacting accordingly, taking ad dollars to other platforms, starving the old giants. 

The newspapers are slimming down.  A lot.

In fact, they continue to make changes fighting against the inevitable. 

Frankly, if they wanted to make themselves more appealing, they could try a fair and balanced approach to reporting.  That probably won't happen soon.  Unbiased reporting is about as alien to today's mainstream media journalists as oh, voting for Republicans.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Plummeting Newspaper Ad Revenue Sparks New Wave of Changes

With global newspaper print advertising on pace for worst decline since recession, publishers cut costs and restructure

Newspapers are suffering an accelerating drop in print advertising, a market that already was under stress, forcing some publishers to consider significant cost cuts and dramatic changes to their print and digital products.

Global spending on newspaper print ads is expected to decline 8.7% to $52.6 billion in 2016, according to estimates from GroupM, the ad-buying firm owned by WPP PLC. That would be the biggest drop since the recession, when world-wide spending plummeted 13.7% in 2009.

That decline is hitting every major publisher, increasing pressure on them to boost digital-revenue streams even faster to make up for lost revenue and, in some cases, even reconsider the format of their print products and the types of content they publish.

Boost digital revenue streams?  Last I heard the paywalls are coming down as abject failures to drive up revenues.  In fact, all they do is discourage traffic, which poses a double whammy for paywall practioners.  What's more, web savvy users install "NoScript" or other script blockers which block paywalls for most media outlets.  When coupled with Ad Blocking software, browsing is a whole lot more enjoyable.