Grim Milestone: Newspaper Death Spiral Accelerating

They'll blame it on the faltering economy, the Internet, whatever. But an undeniable fact is people are tuning out newspapers in record numbers because they're sick and tired of the product.

Relentless leftwing bias has a price, and now they're paying it.

The newspaper industry has experienced the worst drop in advertising revenue in more than 50 years.

According to new data released by the Newspaper Association of America, total print advertising revenue in 2007 plunged 9.4% to $42 billion compared to 2006 -- the most severe percent decline since the association started measuring advertising expenditures in 1950.

The drop-off points to an economic slowdown on top of the secular challenges faced by the industry. The second worst decline in advertising revenue occurred in 2001 when it fell 9.0%.

Total advertising revenue in 2007 -- including online revenue -- decreased 7.9% to $45.3 billion compared to the prior year.

There are signs that online revenue is beginning to slow as well. Internet ad revenue in 2007 grew 18.8% to $3.2 billion compared to 2006. In 2006, online ad revenue had soared 31.4% to $2.6 billion. In 2005, it jumped 31.4% to $2 billion.

As newspaper Web sites generate more advertising revenue, the growth rate naturally slows.

Apparently it hasn't occurred to anyone that if they weren't so biased they might be able to lure some readers back, hence increasing potential ad revenue.