And let's not overlook the element of ideology. Newspaper editors and reporters always have been overwhelmingly left-wing -- contrary to the abiding conservatism and centrism of their readerships.

With the advent of viable niche alternatives to general circulation newspapers, angry and exasperated newspaper readers who had not yet tuned out and turned off to the liberal bias infusing the news columns (and overt opinion in the news columns under the header "analysis") fled to talk radio, cable, blogs and Tweets. With this insistent leftism, at least, newspapers have aided in their own difficulties -- just as the television networks, with their similar leftism, have aided in theirs.

But isn't the Internet really the fundamental reason for the depression in the newspaper industry?

Certainly it's an important one -- maybe the straw that finally collapsed the camel. Whoever would have thought things called blogs would help deliver the coup de grace to newspapers?

Just as newspapers, after endless anguished discussion, never could figure out how to stanch the circulation hemorrhage, so they never could determine how to make significant -- or even adequate -- money on the Internet. In almost all cases they are giving their content away, with the implicit yet inescapable message that content lacking sufficient value for newspapers to price it is worthless to readers as well.

This is true even of newspapers owning the local information franchise. Simply not enough people seem to care about local news and opinion to make many local news enterprises viable. It's a huge and compelling sadness. As the citizenry becomes less informed and consequently less involved, civic virtue diminishes -- and the community along with it.

There must be an answer.

One has to hope so. Despite dismal trajectories, some newspapers are doing a lot of things right. Yet with the landscape littered with the carcasses of newspapers vibrant seemingly just yesterday, it's a question how many can hang on -- and for how long.

Within the industry, there used to be an adamant rule that reporters keep themselves out of their stories. Now newspapers contain ever more instances of the first-person singular -- and newspapers themselves, in contravention of another newspaper no-no, are becoming a very big story indeed. And no one, including those paying the closest attention, can say how or when this story, this depression, will end.