Last night, I spent some time reading short online biographies of Horace Greeley. Here’s an uncited Wikipedia entry for Horace Greeley:

Not long after the election, Greeley’s wife died. He descended into madness and died before the electoral votes could be cast. In his final illness, allegedly Greeley spotted Reid and cried out, “You son of a bitch, you stole my newspaper.”

Tonight, I’m looking up who Reid is and why this might be attributed to Horace Greeley. Here are some things I read today on the big drop in newspaper circulation:

This is the End of the Newspaper Business - The Atlantic
I think we’re witnessing the end of the newspaper business, full stop, not the end of the newspaper business as we know it. The economics just aren’t there. At some point, industries enter a death spiral: too few consumers raises their average costs, meaning they eventually have to pass price increases onto their customers. That drives more customers away. Rinse and repeat . . .

U.S. Newspaper Circulation Falls 10% - New York Times
“Everybody keeps telling the newspaper industry to evolve, to change, to become digital,” he said. “And when we do that and grow our audience, people focus on these print circulation numbers. We’ve taken the circulation down very deliberately.”

U.S. Newspaper Circulation Falls - Wall Street Journal
Average weekday newspaper circulation for the six months ended Sept. 30 dropped nearly 11%, the starkest decline in years and a sign of both the industry’s deepening troubles and its efforts to purposely pare unprofitable copies.

Nearly two-thirds of the 25 largest papers in the U.S. posted circulation declines of 10% or more. Hearst Corp.’s San Francisco Chronicle, which posted a 26% drop in circulation, and Advance Publications Inc.’s Star-Ledger in New Jersey, with a decline of more than 22% from a year earlier.The sharpest falloffs for the group were at The results, released Monday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, an industry group, reflect the figures reported every six months by hundreds of U.S. dailies. Average weekday circulation declined 7.1% in the period ended in March from a year earlier. The decline was 4.6% in September 2008.

U.S. newspaper circulation falling faster, industry report shows - LA Times
Newspapers have seen their circulation decline sharply in recent years as readers increasingly have turned to online sources for news. Many of these websites are operated by the same newspapers that are losing traditional subscribers, but publishers are struggling to bring in enough online ad dollars to replace the loss of print advertising. And readers have been reluctant to pay for access to online newspapers sites.