A consultant once said, in a meeting I attended, "If you're still doing news the way you did it in 1997, you're in trouble."

1997? Try 1957.

My understanding is, everyone who got out of there at about the time as Hughes, did so for a good reason and probably because there were unpopular things brewing, or anticipated, from management (which may have included this decision to cut production) ... Beavis, did you work there?

But it is a result of local or corporate management?

The Daily World has not been locally owned since it was acquired by DonRey from the LaFromboise family in 1968 following the early death of owner and publisher Dick LaFromboise. I believe the La Fromboise family still owns the Centralia Chronicle.

Stephens Media purchased the midsize Donrey Media Group chain from the family of Arkansas media mogul Donald Reynolds following his death in 1993. Donrey was always one of the lowest paying newspaper chains in the country and was often at the bottom of the list in Pew Research media reports on reporters in the newsroom per capita of coverage area population. The Stephens company is best known as one of the largest investment firms off Wall Street. Infer what you will.

With the precipitous decline of newspapers, there isn't a newsroom in the country that has not had unpopular cuts from management. While I think the reliance on news wire has always been too high at the Daily World, local economic factors do dictate how good a newspaper a community can afford. With the fracture of the base economic model of newspapers and the explosion of alternative advertising opportunities, I am not sure any community can afford the quality of coverage they expect. These are the days when Time magazine is nearly under, National Geographic is holding on by its fingertips, major newspapers are on the brink of collapse and the idea of objective reporting seems to be dead.

Really, I do not think most younger people care about the news anymore, or trust it as much as the rest of the broken institutions that have betrayed them, and I can't say I blame them. It's post-cynical resignation. They just want to be entertained and create their own content. Screw the man.

In most large corporations, local management is people who have no choice but to say yes or walk, and therefore a good reflection of corporate management. Big newspaper companies are like oil tankers with a busted rudder, it's all momentum and wind, and it's a slow bitch to turn. Among corporations, newspapers have historically been very slow to change.

I did, and a current editor there is the specific reason I left. It wasn't any sort of upcoming policy shift--it was the specific bullying and irrational behavior by one particular individual that caused me to look elsewhere.

I can't speak to why others left but I'd like to think my departure (and the reasons for it) gave them some motivation.

Local backed up by corporate. They can't see that the old ways are what is dying as opposed to the medium itself--from what I read, smaller community papers like the Hurl that are the "only game in town" are doing rather well across the country these days.

This is too bad, I hope they stick around, I like the feel of newspapers and as my wife says, sitting at the breakfast table or on the crapper w/ a lap top just isn't the same, reading the comics and doing the crossword on the lap top isn't the same. plus you can't roll up your lap top and swat the dog with it.