Don't blame Craigslist, etc. for the Youngstown Vindicator

The Youngstown Vindicator (Wiki) recently made news when it said it would go out of biz on Aug. 31.

Many people lamented this as part of the decline of newspapers, pointing fingers at places like Craigslist.

Instead, start by pointing the finger at Youngstown's economy.

Per City-Data, Youngstown is about 65 percent the size of Flint, Michigan, and Mahoning County is half the size of Genesee County.

Youngstown's economy is just about as bad as Flint's and Mahoning's is worse than Genesee's.

Neighboring Warren is not so bad off. Ditto for Trumbull County.

If Wiki is right that the Vindicator has still been publishing three sections on weekdays, sounds like there's been a series of ongoing bad editor's and publisher's decisions. I mean, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram only publishes two sections on Mondays, and sometimes on other weekdays. The Denton Record-Chronicle, in a healthier city twice the size of Youngstown only publishes two sections even on Saturdays, though it remains a seven-day daily. (Interestingly, both the Startlegram and the Morning Snooze circulate in the Gainesville area, but the Wrecked Chronicle does not. Questionable publisher's ideas there, too, probably dating back to when the Snooze briefly owned the DRC.)

Anyway, that's only half the problem.

The other? The Vindicator's website appears to still have NO paywall. Not even a leaky or half-assed one.

On that? Start the blame with Deano Singleton during his time as chairman of AP's board of directors and his touting of the "TV model" for online newspapers, even though pay cable channels existed back then and this grossly misunderstood how TV and radio advertising works. Blame the rest of the AP board for going along with this stupidity. Blame AP member newspapers for going along with that stupidity.

And, as far as the Vindicator's owner?

Let's say it was a seven-day daily. Had it cut to six-day or even five-day, as well as cutting a few pages, it would be alive and well. Its ownership also has one of Youngstown's TV stations and an FM radio station.

This leads to two other issues.

One is "clustering." It was a buzz word 25 years ago, and even with FTC worries, purely within the newspaper biz and not electronic media, it's still buzz word as much as reality today.

The other is that newspapers were long one of the most capitalistic businesses in America. Adjustments were belated.