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Regardless of how frequently a newspaper is published, which readers it serves, and how it approaches reporting, all papers need to take in money (whether it’s from deep-pocketed owners, subscriptions, street sales, or advertising) as well as spend money (for example, on journalists’ salaries, newsprint, and wire services) to survive.

Yet these economic realities are in flux today. Ever since the rise of television network evening news programs helped kill the afternoon daily, newspapers have faced a difficult competitive marketplace. In recent years, the twin challenges of the Internet and the economic crisis starting in late 2008 sent many papers into bankruptcy. The Internet had already ended newspapers’ long hold on classified ads, but the economic crisis saw ad revenues from car dealers, realtors, and retail businesses cut in half, and new lows are still expected. On top of this, many newspaper corporations like the Tribune Company, which declared bankruptcy in 2008, became overleveraged. That is, once advertising revenues fell, many media conglomerates that previously borrowed lots of money in an effort to consolidate business in the 1980s and 1990s were incapable of paying back their debts, causing them to sell their businesses or declare bankruptcy. As a result, many papers have had to cut staffing to the bone to lower expenses in the hopes of remaining profitable. But this has often backfired as they try to expand their online operations with fewer reporters and editors.