by: Columbia Journalism Review

Anyone who cares about the future of newsrooms is on the lookout for omens. And there have been plenty of bad ones lately. Newspaper vital signs, for example, are pointing south—profit margins, stock prices, ad revenue, and valuations. Jack Shafer, drawing on the work of the astute Philip Meyer, noted in his Reuters column recently that owners are reacting to such declines by harvesting newspapers’ “goodwill”—their standingin the community and the habits of readers and advertisers of giving them money—by reducing their value “bit by bit, month by month.”