My personal recollection is that local newspapers went into sharp decline about 20 years ago, which is about when Craigslist became a mainstream brand, ruining

My personal recollection is that local newspapers went into sharp decline about 20 years ago, which is about when Craigslist became a mainstream brand, ruining local newspapers that relied on selling classified ads. The demise of classified ads made newspapers increase their subscription prices, which subsequently lost them subscribers. With fewer eyeballs to sell, newspapers could no longer charge as much for advertising, gutting what revenue they had left. Local newspapers started dropping like flies in the 00s. This is how I recall it, and more or less what wikipedia describes on their page about the decline of newspapers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_newspapers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_newspapers That page also mentions that TV had been hurting the newspaper industry since the 50s. But I think the real decline started roughly 20 years ago. 24/7 cable news, starting in the 80s, probably did a lot of damage too. It's hard for a newspaper to compete with all the fancy sound effects and animations that television news use to mesmerize viewers.