By host Tom Ashbrook:

It’s been a slipping business for a long time but the news from the world of newspapers was brutal in 2005.

Circulation was headed south. Advertising revenue growth was dismal, as more and more ads head onto the Internet. Big newspapers went for sale as shareholders howled for better returns. But the big news last year was the layoffs –big ones– that hit newsrooms across the country.

In New York and Boston and Los Angeles and St. Louis and Seattle and more smaller towns than you can count, the newsgathering spine of the American news media — the traditional watchdog and community builder — is shrinking.

Hear about crunch-time for America’s newspapers and what the country would do without them.

Guests:

Tom Ronsenstiel, Director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Vice Chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, former media critic of the LA Times and Chief Congressional Correspondent for Newsweek

Roy Peter Clark, Vice President and Senior Scholar at the Poynter Institute — a non profit, independent institution which teaches journalists and leaders in the media

Peter Bathia, Executive Editor of the Oregonian Newspaper, based in Portland, Oregon.