I think you have this backwards. One of the big problems at the moment in news media is that a tiny number of papers have _so much more prestige_ than their co

I think you have this backwards. One of the big problems at the moment in news media is that a tiny number of papers have _so much more prestige_ than their competitors that its sucked the oxygen out of the industry: instead of (eg) Philadelphians reading the Inquirer, they read the Times, and so the Times can grow, and it's a self-reinforcing feedback loop. This is pretty bad for local news, which is bad because there are a lot of local issues in the US! It's important to have good newspapers in (eg) North Dakota because the state has a lot of power. It's also kinda ironic that you mentioned this on a thread about this article, because the author in question is the child of writers/academics/judges/lawyers, educated privately on the UWS, graduated summa cum laude from Yale where we wrote for "prestige" magazines, and then built his career through a bunch of lower prestige publications. He's an exact poster child for the NYTimes being near the top of the prestige chain!