We hear a lot about the future of newspapers, how they are on death's door. Frankly, Chin Music would give David Cady's left leg for a profit margin of 15.6%, the newspaper industry average.

That said, there are glaring problems in the industry, no question. But are they structural or the fault of incompetent managers? That's the focus of the exchange between Robert McChesney and Glenn Harlan Reynolds in this very interesting Los Angeles Times piece. Here's a snippet from McChesney:

(We) agree about old media digging their own graves, only I think the reasons are structural, not largely because of incompetent owners. Most newspapers have been in a death dance of sorts for the past generation, a death dance that has picked up its tempo in the past decade. It goes like this: newspapers gut serious journalism because that costs money (and can antagonize powerful people in their community) and their marketing people tell them the desirable youth demographics (and major advertisers) want sports and entertainment and business and lifestyle news, which is far less expensive to produce. In the near term that equals higher profits. Younger readers over time find they can get this type of information faster and better online and stop reading daily newspapers. By this time they have less of an understanding of what good local journalism is because they have not been exposed to it. So newspapers find themselves painted into a corner, producing less of the product that makes them distinct and not having nurtured a market for quality local news.