There is going to be consolidation in the newspaper industry, however I think certain newspapers like the NYT and the WSJ are best suited to navigate this. The

There is going to be consolidation in the newspaper industry, however I think certain newspapers like the NYT and the WSJ are best suited to navigate this. The NYT is a newspaper of record for all the reasons InclinedPlane stated makes good journalism; they are already incredible in that respect. Paywalls are the right strategy for them because they have a premium that people are willing to pay for, which has worked for the WSJ. Claims that the newspaper industry is dead are likely from people who don't read any newspapers. The NYT is still the standard (WSJ and Financial Times among the financial press) for journalism and there will always be a market for that, despite the rise of blogs, citizen journalism, and cable news. I'd also like to add that there is research that shows that the monopolies newspapers have/had is responsible for greater accuracy and less bias (and I would argue greater overall quality). Cable news is the best example of heavy competition being responsible for a decline in accuracy and quality. Fox and MSNBC cater to different ends of the political spectrum because it draws viewers in. CNN, who attempts to position themselves as straight news, has been caught holding the ratings bag because they have no niche (and they were at one point the top of their game during the 90s with their coverage of the Gulf War). http://www.economics.harvard.edu/files/faculty/56_marketfornews_090904.pdf http://www.economics.harvard.edu/files/faculty/56_marketforn... http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/jesse.shapiro/research/jepmedia.pdf http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/jesse.shapiro/research/jepme...