TW: I have never followed CSM closely, I subscribed briefly in college for a class. I always have respected their work. As you likely know, the traditional newspaper business model is broken, probably irreparably. The CSM has now taken the step of actually ceasing daily production of its printed edition and will instead transition to an primarily web publication with a weekly printed edition.
The public newspaper firms (NYT, WaPo, McClatchey etc.) are in free fall and have not made money this year, an election year or the one year when they should be rocking. Expect bankruptcies or fire-sale of newspaper assets next year once the severe recession bites hard.
What does it mean when the media business model is broken. It means they even fewer resources to gather news and investigate malfeasance on the part of all kinds of characters. Among other consequences it means you are more likely to turn on a news channel and find the cheapest form of media show, multiple pundits spewing poorly informed and/or highly biased bile across a table in a rhetorical circus of foolishness.
There are those who resent the media but I side with those who remind us that the media with all its faults is a core attribute of well-functioning governance. What is the answer? I do not know. Web advertising is not coming close to providing sufficient revenues to make up the collapse of off-line revenues. Beware the consequences.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2008/10/what_is_the_fourth_estate.cfm
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