Struggle and Decline.

The decade of the 1960s was one of continued struggle and decline for newspapers. In 1909 there were 689 cities in the United States that had competing daily newspapers; by 1963 that number had shrunk to 55. Among major cities that number was down to 20. Over 1,400 cities had only one newspaper or two papers owned by the same publisher. Chains such as Scripps-Howard, Hearst, Newhouse, Knight, and Cox bought up papers around the country, having the effect of making newspapers more alike editorially regardless of the competitive status. Also people began to move outside the cities to the suburbs, taking away circulation and targets of advertisers.

Competition.

Newspapers in the 1950s and 1960s performed three functions for the public: they provided news information, they provided entertainment, and they were advertising vehicles. The decline of a competitive news environment was a product of the...