Failure of Newspapers, Reason for

Research and analysis of gross and net revenues of the nation's print newspapers and their suppliers has revealed some interesting information.  Two relationships have been discovered, one direct and one inverse. 

The direct relationship is described by the fall in purchases of printer's ink and newsprint, and the gross revenues generated by newspaper sales.  This relationship has been characterized as one which should be "intuitively obvious to the casual observer."  A not-so-obvious, but just as concrete a direct relationship has been noted between the decrease in newspaper sales and the decrease in the sales of ink-stain removal products.

The inverse relationship, which should be just as obvious is between the decline in print-edition sales and the rise of revenues due to the sales of eReaders (various products), tablet computers (e.g., iPad(r) and iPhone(r)), the Amazon Kindle Fire(r), the Barnes and Noble NOOK(r) and the like.

Our analysis, proprietary and (probably) of non-generalizable nature, is that the general public has become fed up with cleaning printer's ink deposited on fingers, hands and everything those appendages touch (e.g., white toasters and other appliances, white kitchen faucets, counter-tops upon which the papers lie (lay?) while being read, smudges on white shirts and blouses and a myriad of other otherwise sparkling, clean items about the well-kept home). 

While the smudges are some of the most obvious draw-backs to daily newspaper subscriptions, there is the peripheral disadvantage of having finger-prints all over the house.  Even the least adept, CSI trainee is able to lift those prints from glasses, plates, every-day silver and mirrors, to name but a few areas from which an identity can be determined.  Day-to-day readers may not be under suspicion of anything (except participating in the demise of the print media), but in the unique situation where a specific individual is being sought, a random finger print may be critical to closing the case, and therefore, be a reason for even the most ignorant criminal to cancel his (her) daily subscription.

It, therefore, seems obvious that the tidy middle class homemakers have decided that "newspapers must go," that ink-removing tasks (and the costs thereof) are a burden to be dispensed with, and that the neat, clean and continuously-updated digitized information  delivered to us inside our warm, dry, heated and air conditioned homes it the option of choice. 

In addition, having that digital information delivered to us 24/7 on our eReader equipment (various manufacturers) is far preferable to having to brave the wind, rain, snow, sleet, ankle-deep water and other environmental hazards when getting the paper thrown on to the driveway by the brazen little snot, with the entitlement attitude, on his bicycle who will TP our trees at Halloween or misplace our paper completely if he is not given a handsome monetary (cash) reward at Christmas. 

The newspaper as a modern-day utility is going the way of all dinosaurs.  We can only take heart in the fact that those dinosaurs, their bones and altered flesh are now, after eons of metamorphosing into Light Sweet Crude, are lighting the way to our petroleum-fueled future.  The horse-and-buggy days were replaced by internal combustion engines.  The print media is being, understandably, replaced by digital data delivery.  And it has all happened, in the case of newspapers, because of the printer's ink smudges on our new, white, Cuisinart(r) toaster.

Please pass the butter.