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The loss in quality of written and pictorial journalism has contributed significantly to the continued drop in readership. The drop in income is in the most due to a drop in advertising revenue.
Circulation, the number of copies sold, drives all revenues. And newspapers were losing massive sales to modern media long before they laid off their photographers. Digital media is just so much better at everything most readers value. As has often been said, if digital media had arrived first, print media would never have been invented. If you speak to a group of people under 30, some of them will never have purchased a newspaper; under 20, most of them. Printed media is basically dead for the mainstream.
But the question of quality journalism and photography is different. That's just about money and the 'free' ethos of the internet has thwarted the best efforts of the biggest conventional media companies to find a business model capable of generating enough cash to make it pay. I used to think that it would only be a few years before the buying public woke up to the fact that quality costs and we'd all be happy to start paying for good content, but that hasn't happened in any significant way.
Meanwhile, the new social media giants are making a mint but their business model is not just a bit different, it's radically new. My guess is, if there is indeed a market for quality content that consumers really value - and there surely is - then this is where we'll get it in some shape or form.