At the same time that the debate over the structure and effects of the emerging global media industry is being influenced by the values that are most represented by newspapers, the newspaper industry is in what appears to be an almost certain and inevitable decline. Although there is substantial evidence to refute the charges that the industry is a "dinosaur" and in terminal danger, there is little doubt that the relative importance of the newspaper as an information conveyer, a public policy agenda-setter, and an economic power is declining.

Indications of decline have been around since the nineteenth century. Some people in the 1830s criticized the change that transformed newspapers from expensive business, political, or literary publications (limited to elite audiences) into inexpensive, advertising supported, mass media. Certainly, the pejorative terms "yellow journalism," "tabloids," and "jazz journalism" were part and parcel of the criticism that newspapers...