Why Newspapers Aren't Going to Die (Yet)

This has obviously been a horrible year for the newspaper industry, but there's reason to believe that the main cause of the current cutbacks has been the economy, not the overall death of the medium. For example, look at this NYT piece on cutbacks in auto advertising:

According to the newspaper association’s own data, the share of newspaper advertising from automakers is shrinking rapidly: in the first quarter, auto advertising represented just 2.8 percent of all national advertising in newspapers. As recently as 2005, the figure was more than 10 percent each quarter.

Advertising is generally one of the first things a company cuts back on when times get rough. Right now, times are rough everywhere, so a lot of companies are cutting back. But when the economy picks back up (eventually), newspapers should start doing a little better than they are right now.