Where Have All the Moguls Gone?

One answer: They have all sold out (or as in the case of the Virginian Pilot, are in the process of selling out).

Like Prelutsky, I have often asked,

...why a business, any business, would go out of its way to antagonize, depending on the city, between, say, 40 and 60% of its market.

Taking an ideological position may be a good business model in a market where there are several competing newspapers. That is the way you get the readers who share your viewpoint. But when you are the monopoly paper in town (and that's the position of most of the papers in this country) you should attract everybody rather than repelling half the population.

Think of the car business. Imagine GM as the lone American car company making a decision to only make Buicks. And advertising its cars by making fun of small car buyers. What a boon to the foreign manufacturers of small cars. In fact, it's almost what happened.

GM only exists because of the residual loyalty of its customers, the fact that it is so big that it's hard to kill, and because it has adapted.

Newspapers have yet to learn to adapt; and may never adapt because - deep in their souls - the people who make the product (the editors and writers) really don't believe they are a business. And that spells doom.